the Sky is the Limit
by Lady Starscream
Summary: My take on the Fanchar100 challenge, featuring my OC Jade. Ratings vary according to chapter, and each chapter title will be marked with the rating. Also, new chapters are now up. When I get done, I'll try to get all the chapters posted in order, instead of as I get them written.
1. 00 Character profile and introduction

Name: Jade

Age: 19-ish (I started writing the ficseries in highschool)

Hair: N/A Eyes: green Height: about 19ft 4 inches

Weight: uhh... a couple tons? how much does a jet weigh, again?

Gender: female Species: trans-Cybertronian (human-turned transformer, see explanation at page bottom)

Demeanor: huh? umm.. young, irreverent, I dunno.

Description: Muave (a little on the crimsony side) and blue seekerjet (F-15E strike Eagle)

Fandom:Transformers G1

Relationships: the other fancharacters from my fic will appear regularly, various Autobots and Decepticons will appear (later.)

* * *

In basic, the fanfiction I'm writing here is canon to my fanfic, which I'm working on renaming (canon G1). The basis of the fanfic is yes, it IS a self-insertion fic, and NO, my character is NOT a Mary Sue. I am not the only one being thrown into this. My fanchars are based off some of my friends who gave me permission to do so. And yes, the whole story is about a bunch of teenagers getting thrown into the TF universe, and being stuck there.

In a plot device echoing "Starscream's Brigade" and "the Revenge of Bruticus", (episodes 62 and 63), I'm also putting in a couple of 'neutral' transformers. (Hey,I figure if it's possible to have giant robots that turn into cars and are alive, justabout anything is possible)  
So there ya go. The fics for the fanchar100 challenge will be mid-fic, not at the beginning, leaving me a nice roomy place to squeeze in all my other ficcystuff.

* * *

Title: the Sky is the Limit

Challenge Set: 1

Rating: PG/ varies

Word Count: various, according to fic

Pairings: Jade/Syus (friendship, non-romantic), Jade/Highroad(later)

Summary: well, my summaries don't really say much. But I think I got it written down somewhere in the paragraph above this one.

Spoilers: Oh yes, there will be spoilers. But I may not get the fic itself published for a while anyway.

* * *

**Other Stuff**

the abbreviated Bio from the ficseries homepage:

"The clouds are my home, the sky is my domain. The air is but an ocean of blue. And I am the shark among the waves of the wind."

Name: Jade

Function: Air Support (no actual held title)

Strength:3

Intellegence:5

Speed:8

Endurance:6 (the site says 7, but it's supposed to be 6)  
Rank:8

Courage:3

Agility:4

Firepower:5

Skill:3

Primary Weapon: standard arm-mounted blasters

Secondary Weapon(S):twin pistols, carried barrels-crossed at the back of her waistline (subspaced), can also be carried in hip-holstiers while in use. Also has hidden wrist and elbow spikes.

Standard seekerjet design, but with a feminine twist. Sarcastic, and lack of respect for authority. (kinda. She may razz Syus, but she'd follow him if he ordered her to jump off the edge of a cliff.) Immature and spontaneous sometimes, but know how to be mature and focused when the situation calls for it. Believes unwaveringly in the cause, but isn't overly-anxious to fly into a full-scale battle. Uses sarcasm to conceal the fact she's unsure of the future, and the outcome of the war.


	2. 01 Run (Down to Earth)

First off, let me say I suck at short stories. and this part of the fiction involves mostly Original Characters. They are a completely different group, no Autobots, no Decepticons (not just yet, anyway). I'll try and get the rest of the info up so you all can read it soon. You can check out the character bios for all characters in this fic at http/ Also, I wasn't sure about windstriker, I had to character name after the fic was written, when I discovered the previous name was used. So if I accidentally use anyone's fanchar name, it is purely unintentional, and PLEASE let me know.

yes, I know it's a dumb little filler bit, but I hurried to get it done. So please don't hold it against me. I promise I'll try to make the next one better.

Title: the Sky is the Limit part one: Down to Earth (what goes up must come down)

Challenge Set: 1

Challenge: run

Rating: PG (mild swearing)

Word Count: 3394

Pairings: Jade/Syus (Scythe)(friendship, non romantic)

time frame: canon to an in-progress ficseries, mid-ficseries, actually. canon G1

summary: the group tries to get some battle training. Unfortunately, grounded jets and paintballs do not mix... (when one cannot fly, learn how to run like heck!)

* * *

0400 hours (4:00 a.m)

"BEEEP"

"Gyaaaah!"

The muave and blue seeker fell off her recharge berth with a startled thump. Rubbing the sore spot on her wing where she'd hit the floor, she picked herself up and rubbed her tired optics, glancing at the clock by her roommate's bunk, across the room.

"Great, just great."

Her roommate, a purple and tanA-10 warhog, didn't even stir as the jet mumbled her way sleepily out of the darkened room.  
Jade made her way towards the main cavern, mumbling darkly under her vocaliser, pausing asshe passed the cave where Mick and Needle shared quarters, but decided not to wake them. They were grumpy enough to handle the rest of the time, let alone this early in the morning. She continued down the tunnel between caves, falling into step beside the smaller black and silver form of Gobee. "Why are we doing this again?" he yawned, stretching halfway as they walked.  
"It's called boot camp." a feminine voice grouched from behind them. Windstriker, the purple and tan A-10, fell into step beside the two, and they entered the main cavern. "But it's four in the morning!" the little black BMW, Gobee, protested.

Windstriker nabbed an energon cube from the stack on a nearby console and sipped at it. "We all agreed to it." she stated.  
"So much for democracy." Jade quipped.  
The door slid open, and a tall, broad-shouldered green mech, with hues of blue and yellow strode in, a shorter, grey and blue mech beside him. The second mech kinda resembled the Decepticon leader, Megatron. (note I said kinda), but with blue sideplating, instead of red. Also, the various markings were different colors, and especially, the darker shade of grey, which was almost a light charcoal in color. Syus, the dark green scale-armored mech, checked his chronometer.  
"Has anyone seen Mic?" Bullet, the cinder colored second-in-command asked the half-asleep trio. Blank looks and half-awake mumbles came as the reply. Syus and Bullet gave each other a knowing look...

0415 hours (4:15 a.m)  
BEEEP!

zzzzzzzzzz...

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP!

mumblemumblemumble..zzzzzzz...

WRiiiEEEEErEErEErEErrrEEEAAAGHEEERRR!

Syus hit the base's alarm button, forcing himself not to let the smirk cross his face that was trying to make it's way to the surface.  
Wyldkat came zooming into the main cavern, coming to a screeching halt, transforming mid-motion, her pistol allready in hand. "What's going on, it's four in the morning!"the blue Plymouth Reliant said excitedly, ready for whatever battle the alarm had called for.

"It's called boot camp." the now-awake Windstriker said, tossing the fourdoor sedan a yellowish energon cube. "I'd call it 'Syus on a power trip.' Gobee muttered from around his energon. Jade glanced at the green mech in question, then quickly nodded behind his back conspiratorily

"Oh, yeah,I forgot."

Wyldkat pretended not to hear Gobee's comment, and took a seat on a nearby rock. The white Camaro Z28, otherwise known as Mic wandered in, casting death glares in all directions, and at anyone who might get in between him and his breakfast. Needle simply took a seat at one of the consoles, and immediately fell asleep again. Wyldkat quickly went over and woke him up, and handed him a cube before Syus could notice and find another inventive way to wake him up.  
"Is everyone here?" Syus asked Bullet. Jade glanced over at the two as she grabbed her cube. "I hate mornings." she mumbled around the yellowish glowing liquid.

Two days ago, the group, including the two Cybertronian fliers, Razer and Dusk, had had a meeting on how to stay ready in case of another combat situation. Someone had brought up the idea of running combat simulations, and the idea of a novice 'boot camp' of sorts. Everyone had though it was a great idea.

- At the time.

"Why for the love of Primus did I open my big vocaliser at the meeting."Jade asked under her vocaliser. Windstriker leaned over and whispered. "Don't worry, I don't think it'll work. They'll probably cancel the routines after a week or so"  
"I hope so." the muave and blue seeker huffed. Then whispered back. "I _hate_ getting up at four a.m. I am _not_ a morning person"  
Across the room, Needle had fallen asleep again, his energon cube dangling at his fingertips, threatening to hit the floor and explode if the pickup truck lost his grip.  
Syus walked forward a couple steps to address the group.  
"You have half an hour to wake up, and get fully charged-" he began.  
At which point, Needle lost his grip on his energon cube, and it hit the floor, exploding with a sound something like a cross between a firecracker and an exploding lightbulb.

BLAM!

HYEEAGHH!

The blue and green mech rocketed out of his seat, and did a mini-dance of startledness before settling down, and glancing around wide-eyed for a second.

Jade rolled her optics.

Syus said flatly: "So glad you could join us"

Wyldkat snickered.

Gobee did a near-choke-turned-cough on his energon.

"Now, as I was saying." Syus continued as if nothing had happened. "I will meet you back in this cavern in half an hour." He turned and left the room, Bullet following.

0445 hours (4:45 a.m)  
The muscular greenish-scaled Syus and shorter, but no less muscular Bullet returned to the control room, the two Cybertronian fliers with them. Razer, a dark cinnamon-brown, black, and green mech, and Dusk, the pink, tan, and blue femme of nearly the same design. The rest of the group, Wyldkat (the blue sedan), Windstriker (the purple A-10), Jade (the muave and blue F-15E), Needle (the blue and green Ford F150 with yellow highlights), Mic(pronounced mick)(the white camaroZ28), and last but not least Gobee (the small black silver-trimmed BMW 350i) were standing in a line at almost-attention.

Bullet stood where he was, and Syus started forward to pace in front of the 'trainees'. "Welcome to your first day of boot camp. You will follow my orders without question." He stopped in front of Jade as he said this. She just smirked back in reply.

"You will learn to work as a coordinated team." he paused at Mic and Needle, then added at a more normal volume. "Not a bunch of teenagers." "Uh, Syus?" Gobee began. Syus went back to his commanding tone instantly. "You will learn not to interrupt me..."

"Hey Syus."

". . . yes, Jade"

he turned, knowing shehad donethat just to irk him.

"How's come you're not participating in this, but you're giving the orders on this thing?"

Syus walked over to stand in front of the seeker jet. It had been Gobee's question, but he didn't get to finish it. So she did. Syus's face remained emotionless, as it often did when someone was being annoying. Especially if they were ignoring his authority as commander of the group.

Purposely.

The muave and blue seekerjet just looked at her commanding officer and friend, optics just dancing with mirth at knowing she'd afted his authority once again. And there was nothing he could do about it.  
"Because I am the commander of this team, and you..." all traces of understanding in his voice evaporated. "Need to learn how to follow orders."

He didn't miss a beat.

"Have you forgotten who is in charge here, Jade"

"No"

"Good." Syus's tone lifted ever-so-slightly as he said

"Then you can think about that as you run an extra ten miles."

"-but"

"Make it twenty, then"

Jade felt her jaw drop, and the two locked optics. She was about to protest again, but instead shut her mouth, knowing she'd just earn more miles. Geez; Why couldn't he make her _fly_ the extra miles. It was what her alt form was for, anyway.  
Syus gave the jet a wordles look of "Anything else you have to say?" and Jade glared daggers at the mech. Syus returned to his back-and forth pace in front of the line.  
"If we are ever in battle, and someone questions my authority, it can jeopardize the entire group. We have to be able to work coherently as a team. If one of you decides to disagree and go off on your own, it not only jeopardizes the mission. The rest of us can't follow behind you and protect you. Any team that cannot agree within itself cannot work coherently, and is ineffective." he explained.

There were several nods, and Syus continued. "Allright, lets go. We are doing a ten-mile jog. Razer and Dusk will be watching the monitors for either faction in the area. No flying, and no driving." There was a series of protesting moans and groans. "

"But that's what our vehicle forms are for." Needle pointed out.

"Yes, but there is no need to train you in what you allready know how to do, is there?" Syus replied. He and Bullet headed for the main entrance, and the rest of themquietly followed.

0500 (5:00 a.m)  
As it turned out, the route Syus had charted was fairly remote, and circled around staying out of any areas they could easily be spotted. The route stayed a the few miles perimeter to the base, down through a shallow canyon , across a flat area, and then back around over some rocky hills, and through a heavily wooded area. Of course, Jade couildn't help but start an impromptu chorus of "Over the hills and through the woods, to grandma's house we go." which turned into:

"Down into the valley and over the hill and through the woods, we're lost, oh no. And dusty and tired and scratched hooray, and following Syus..." (who shot them a look)  
..."in circles all day"

by the time they got back to the base, the sun had just made it's appearance in the eastern sky. The tired group headed inside to find a resting spot, and Jade was trying desperately to dissapear into the cave before their commander could find her and make her run the entire ten mile course again. twice.

"Jade"

_"Drat"_

"Let's go."

Syus headed back out on the route they had just come in from, jogging beside the tired jet. Jade really wanted to say a few choice wordsabout his punishment earlier, but instead reigned it in. He knew darnwell she had meant that as a playfuljab at his authority. They had allways done that sort of 'arguing'. They were close friends.  
It usually went like this: She'd make quips at him, and he'd have a good comeback to put her back in her place . But now this? it was a bit harsher than usual. Maybe the war was getting to him after all.  
She swallowed the anger she had felt and instead asked:

"With all due respect, _sir._" (she let the sarcasm slip on that one word, though.) She took a breath and they stopped jogging.

"I don't see why I have to run, nevertheless through a FOREST." she caught her breath, and continued. "I'm a flier, a creature of the air. It's where I belong. Not romping around in the mud with a bunch of car types." she said the last sentence with a slightly offended tone. She paused, and after seeing that Syus was listening, face as unreadable as allways; And not being the stern, commanding leader he was back at the base, she addded in a clearly miffed tone "And I can fly WAY better than I can walk.

"Exactly" came the reply

"huh"

"If you ever get shot down, and can't fly, how will you get away?" Syus asked. Neither said anything for a second, then Syus turned and said reassuringly

"Come on, you have fifteen miles, and I want to get back to base before lunchtime."

0700 hours (7:00 a.m)  
Target practice proved fairly easy, after missing the first few dozen times or so. Hitting a moving target proved even harder, if not impossible at first. Especially if the person shooting it was moving, also. Within an hour, though, everyone had gotten the basics of it; Even Gobee.

Razer and Dusk, however, had a suprise for everyone who thought it would be so easy. The two had worked with Syus and Bullet to set up a shooting range where the targets would be stationary, but would be hidden, popping up at random intervals. The color-coded targets were arranged around the miniature arena, and timed according to skill level.

The ten transformers met at the edge of the flat area, which was littered with stones and randomly-positioned metal barriers, kind of making it look like a novice paintball arena. "Your goal is this." Syus spread out a hand towards the obstacle course. "Make it to the other end of this course, in robot mode, and take out all the targets with your color code. If you accidentally shoot someone else's target, or get shot, you are disqualified. We'll do a practice run first." he said.

Gobee raised his hand for attention.

"yes, Gobee"

"What do you mean 'get shot'?"

Jade also interceded with "I don't see any targets." Syus gave her a sharp look, but let the comment go. He picked up a small rock and walked up to the starting line.

"what I means is this." He threw the rock into the playing field. Instantly, a gun popped up out of seemingly nowhere and peppered the rock with small orbs of orange paint.

Gobee looked relieved.

"Oh hell no. _paintballs?"_ Jade giggled. Syus pegged the jet with a look.

"Would you like to demonstrate, Jade?"

her smile fled.

"No, I'll wait." she replied.

Windstriker chuckled. "Gives a whole new meaning to the words 'live ammunition', doesn't it?"

Syus stepped back from the starting line. "Here are your color codes. The guns have allready been set to detect you, and you only. So unless you get in someone's way, you won't have to worry about other people's paintballs"  
"Gobee, orange; Needle, yellow; Mic, Blue; Windstriker, green; Wyldkat is out on patrol.

"How come she gets out of this"

"Jade, pink"

"Grrr"

"Ready?"

a few yesses and a half-hearted no (from Jade) sounded. Syus stepped back a couple paces.

"On the line."

Everyone took their spots Gobee got ready to bolt for the nearest rock. Windstriker readied her pistol, and Jade folded her wings behind her like a butterfly does, so they wouldn't be in the way. She glanced at Windstriker, wishing she could completely fold her wings onto her back like the small purple plane could. She readied her pistol.

"GO!"

Gobee and Needle bolted for the nearest rock at the same time, and a shoving contest resulted. Mick got behind a metal barrier off to one side, and Windstriker went for a barrier on the other side of the field. Unfortunately, Jade had headed for the same one, and ducked in behind Windstriker as they came up to the center of the arena, sharing cover and attracting twice as much weaponfire at the same time. Meanwhile, Needle had shoved Gobee out of 'his' spot, and Gobee _tried _to dodge paintballs for a minutebefore finding cover to run for.  
Mic and Needle then reached the next set of rocks simultaneously, and argued over who got there first, while taking out targets.

"Get out of my spot!"

splat

"are you kidding? I was here first"

splatsplatsplat

"No you weren't"

SPLAT

"was too"

splatsplat

"watch where you're shooting"

"you watch it, slaghead"

SPLAT

"lookout!.. "

splat

"that was close"

"go away you're attracting paintballs"

splat

"so are you"

"behindyou!"

blam

splat

"good shot"

"thanks."

SPLAT

"hey!" (that was Mic's helmet and a paintball connecting, by the way)

"OOPS"

"GRRR"

splatsplatSPLATSQUOOSH

Syus pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Weren't those two ever going to get along?  
By the time it was over, there were five quite colorful day-glo transformers standing on the starting line of the course, which now looked like a psychadellic polka-dot scene. "Does anyone know where you went wrong?" Syus asked.

Jade shifted from one foot to the other, paint dripping from her helm, and made an attempt to wipe some of the neon goo from her armore before it dried. Windstriker stepped forward, only a few spots on her armor.

"We should've spread out more. Sharing cover only attracted more weaponfire." She said.  
"Really? I thought we went wrong deciding to have an impromptu repaint." Jade muttered, wiping more of the stuff from her face and helmet.  
Syus gave the jet a longsuffering look. "Let's try it again. This time without the shoving matches." he said. Reluctantly, the group took their places, and Bullet reset the targets by computer.

"Oh, I forgot to mention the paint is washable, by the way." Syus added.

"now he tells me." Jade mouthed.

Mic glanced at Needle, who grinned back.

Mic flipped Needle off.

Windstriker reached out and smacked the camaro for being crude.

Gobee looked like a deer in the headlights again, and Jade was still grumping over being PINK.

very, very pink.

"GO!"

Roughly an hour or so later, they had all reached the other side with minimal paintballing. By now, though, they were all so colorful you could hardly tell. Any onlooker woundn't have been able to guess Gobee was originally black, and Jade was almost as colorfull. The poor jet had gotten right up to the end of the field when one of Mic's targets decided to fire a paintball at her.

point blank.

in the face.

So now we have a very mad neon-blue faced hot-pink, drippy, muave and baby blue jet with green eyes and a very bad attitude.  
The only thing more colorful than the jet, (although thankfully nobody hear it), was tha language she was using as she stomped back to the starting line.

Bullet merely lifted an optic ridge at the sight, but Syus actually cracked a smile.  
"It's...Not...Funny." the jet deadpanned, stomping past. "that's okay, you're getting better, though." Syus reassured as she passed.  
"Even if you do have to practice until you're blue in the face." he quipped at the retreating form.  
"Kiss my afterburners, Syus!" the jet spat, and stomped back inside the base. Bullet started after her, but Syus merely held up a hand for him to stop. A small chuckle escaped the commander as he said "Let her go, Bullet. She'll be fine." The green mech turned back to the group. "Take a break. We'll meet back out here at noon." The group dispersed, looking for ways to wash off the brightly-colored paint. After they had left, Bullet turned to Syus, a curious look on his face. "Yes, I do have a sense of humor." Syus replied, and headed inside. "And I'm sure Jade realises it now."

he paused at the dorway, and the grin he had been holding back earlier was more than evident against his grey face.

"What goes up must come down." he added ominously, another chuckle escaping as he passed the threshold and dissapeared.

somewhere around 11 am...

After vanquishing any remnants of brightly-colored paintmarks, and a well deserved rest (after four hours of running, shoving, and getting mad at one another) , the group followed Syus out of the mountain base, and towards the shallow canyon they had jogged through earlier. Once again, they found Bullet, Razer, and Dusk waiting for them with another unusual suprise.

A pac-man-like maze had been constructed, heaven only knows where the materials came from, (Jade suspected some poor construction company in Portland had several tons of metal 'sprout legs and walk off' during the night.) but no matter where they got the materials, they'd built a quite interesting metal-walled maze.

"Please tell me this one doesn't involve paintballs, too." Jade said, giving the improvisedmetal maze a wary look.

"No, it doesn't" came the nonchalant reply.

the jet let out a sigh of relief.

"Low-level energy bolts."

"aack!"

'what next?' she thought.

Gobee cringed a little behind her, but tried not to let on. He _was_ trying to look a _little_ less afraid, now.

"Don't worry." Bullet put in. "They feel like a bee sting when they hit, that's all." he reassured.

Syus nodded.

"All the vehicle types can use your car modes on this copurse, but you will have to transform and walk, and even crawl through certain parts of the course. You are not allowed to jump or climb over the barriers, or walk over the crawlways. The only exception is Windstriker, because her robot form does not have wings sticking out, like a regular flier." he explained.

Jade had another pang of jealousy. Damn wings...

"The guns are visible this time. Your goal is to get across/through the course and grab the 'flag' at the other end, and bring it back. You cannot pass the 'flag' between teams. You cannot turn around halfway through the course and head back just because the other team member(S) has it, or tosses it to you. You have to get to the other end before you can come back. The Aerialteam, Jade and Windstriker, have one between the two of you. The land vehicle team, Gobee, Mic, and Needle have one between the three of them. There is also a third 'flag' if you can get it. But it's not required.

"Jade, you are to stay on top of the barriers at all times. If you fall off, you will have to return to the starting position, and start over from there. The same goes for Windstriker; If you fall off. Jumping off doesn't count. Fliers, beware of the crawlways. They are booby trapped." he instructed.

The crawlways were roughly one shoulder width, and the other barriers varied from one footlengthto one footwidth, and the most of them were only half a footwidth.There were two that were one and a half footlengths, easily traversible, but Jade got the feeling that these were also _'booby'_ trapped.

(Why did she get the sneaking feeling Syus was up to something? was that why he smirked at her when he said the _'booby'_ part of booby trap.)

Ah, an insult, Syus style.

about time , too.

Waitaminute! Syus was too stressed and serious to be joking around, escpecially something as important as battle training.

Right?

"Also you don't have to shoot down every gun on the run toward the flag, but try to get as many as you can. Because when you hit that end of the course, the difficulty level will double." Syus explained

serious, yah.

"also, there will be 25 more guns after that, so you will have more to shoot on the way back. You have to hit all the guns on the course, deactivating them. If not on the way to the other end, then on the way back. without getting shot, or losing time. If you do get pegged by a gun, it's the same as one of the fliers falling off one of the barriers; You have to start over.

Also, you will be timed on this, and not, the jets can't use flight. You're going up there to learn balance. Yes, it's windy up on top of the barriers. No pun intended. his tone never wavered, but his optics did flick in her direction for an instant. "You might get blown off a barrier, but you'll have to learn how to adapt." Syus paused for a second.

"allright. get ready to go."

Needle, Mic, and Gobee transformed and started their engines. Jade and Windstriker got on either side of the cars, ready to run and jump up to their places.

Syus and Bullet hit their timers.

"GO!"

Jade and Windstriker sprinted forward, and sprung up onto two of the entryway barriers side-by-side. The first two guns were in plain sight, and were easily taken out.

Windstriker went left, and picked her way across a straight bar one footwidth. Jade took out three more guns. Windstriker was pulling ahead. It seemed the thinner, harder-to-traverse barriers had fewer guns. "Hard work gets you nowhere tired." the jet quipped, heading down the center-right of the maze.

Windstriker moved at a decent pace, not in any hurry, but taking her time to pick off a gun aiming in Jade's direction. The muave-and-blue seeker glanced over at Windstriker, who faltered, and struggled to regain her balance for a second before putting one foot in front of the other to continue on. "Thanks," Jade waved, pulling ahead. She stopped for a secondto let the smaller purple-and-tan catch up. "Guess the straight-and-narrow is harder than it seems, huh?" she grinned. Whirlwind glanced up, then silently put her concentration back on where she was going.

Jade got to another section, and chose the easy way first; Atop one of the tunnelways. She could hear Mic yelling from further down to Needle to hurry up, who had evidently gotten stuck in one of them. Meanwhile, Gobee had risked one of the smaller tunnelways, and was off to another part of the maze.

The seekerjet stepped on a hidden panel, and the walkway suddenly exploded into showers of paint.

neon. pink. paint.

"AAAURGGHHH!- not again!"

Syus grinned from ear to green-scaled ear.

"Hey Jade, you look good in pink." he called, humor leaking into his voice.

She could just hear Mic's guffaws from further down the course.

"BWAHAHAHAHA!"

"_Oh sure. Now he decides to be happy_." she thought.

"this is training, Syus. It's not a game anymore."she yelled back at him. Paint or no paint, the jet kept running, her concentration completely on the task at hand.

"Good, now you get the idea what it's about." he called.

She jumped onto a footlength barrier, stepping foot over foot carefully,and nailed another gun. The barrier she was on came to a T, the left and right sides connecting with the even thinner side barriers. But there was a barrier of the same traversing the width of the field, like the one she was on. It was a few meters away, kind of a wide span; But instead of taking the detour, the multicolored jet ran, and jumped for it.

One painted foot hit and SLID.

Suprise crossed the seeker's face as she dissapeared into the maze with an "EEp!"

thunk

Windstriker ran past, pausing long enough to take a shot at another gun, and shake her head. An exasperated voice wavered up from the grey metal depths.

"Damn paintballs!"

the purple and tan stifled a snicker, and continued on.

Bullet perked an optic ridge.

"What goes up comes down?" he noted

Syus nodded.

"When you can't fly, run like hell." the dragon replied

"damn dragon!"

Syus just grinned some more, chuckling.

"stupid paintballs...stupid boot camp...stupid dragon...mumble mumble mumble"

"time's a-wasting, Jade."

"GRRRRR..."


	3. 07 Sorrow (Sunrise)

Title:Sunrise

Challenge Set: 1

Challenge: sorrow

Rating: G

Word Count: 2433

Pairings: Jade/Highroad (kinda)

time frame: canon to an in-progress ficseries, mid-ficseries, actually. canon G1

summary: Jade is missing her Fiance', who she thinks is still in her home universe. (long story) Little does she know, she's gonna see him sooner than she thought, but not realise it.

(summary sucks. You'll have to read it to find out more.)

HighRoad is my husband Dennis's fancharacter (Jade a.k.a. Anni's fiancee')

Just thought I'd put that in. (.)

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The Eastern sky was just starting to turn orangey with the first hints of the suns's morning light. A lone figure sat on the mountainside, watching the edge of the orange orb peek over the horizon, bathing the land before it in an almost magiacal glow.Off in the distance, the birds had begun to chirp, as though they had not a care in the world. But as far as that lone winged figure sitting on the mountainside, it was otherwise.

"How many times have I watched the birds fly over our world, oblivious to the troubles we Earth-Walkers have? Wished so long I could fly above the earth and all it's worries. To be carefree and happy like they are. To feel the wind around me, and swim in an ocean of sky blue and clouds. It's so peacefull up there. Not like down here, with all the fighting and drama that goes on around us all the time."

She half-smiled at the thought, glad that when she and her friends had come here she hadn't been turned into a car. She silently thanked the powers that be for granting her wish, and finally allowing her to fly. She flicked her wings as an Eagle called in the distance.

The sun was now halfway up, and the muave and blue jet could feel it's warm embrace, as though promising a fresh start with the new day, the worries of the previous day forgotten, erased in the sun's reassuring glow.

Green optics squinted against the light, but Jade couldn't make her eyes move away from the beautiful scene. "No wonder photographers take pictures of the sunrise." she thought. She sighed, turning her attention back to the datapad in her hands. She had been typing on it before the sunrise caught her attention so undividedly.

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Datapad Journal Entry 28-05-01-03

It's been a month. That's been how long since I saw my soulmate, Dennis. Sure, it seems like it was just yesterday. But it feels like an eternity without him here beside me.

Yeah, we _should_ both be here. Maybe it's better we're not. I'd be so worried about something happening to him, I wouldn't be able to concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing. And if we were in battle, I'd probably get the both of us blasted to scrap metal.

It's too bad he went on vacation with his parents. A part of me keeps hoping maybe he'll show up to my rescue, like some knight in shining armor. (no pun intended.) I'm not sure how much of this war and it's violence I can take without his reassurance. Is it too much to hope? After all he _did_ have the cylindrical-glowing device in the trunk of his car. How can he _not_ know about this universe? He's not _that_ stupid, right?

(sigh)

It's wierd. I don't know if it's normal or not to feel this way. So empty without him. I mean, when we lived together, he worked eight hours a day, and so did I. Our work schedules only allowed us to have a few, maybe four, hours together each day. We only had the same day off about once or twice a month. Except for those four hours or so, the only time we really got to spend together and be really close was when we slept.

Is that it?

Maybe that's it.

Maybe I just miss the feeling of his arms wrapped around me as I fell asleep. And even when we were both home, and we may have been two rooms away from each other, at least I could walk a few meters to fall into his loving embrace.

Will I ever see him again?

No. I can't think like that!

I have to think. hope. He had the device in his CAR for Primus's sake! He **has to know!**

. . . I have to calm down.

It's just that I've spent the last year living with him. Even when he wasn't home. I had the security of knowing he would come home to me at the end of his work day. But now?

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Jade sighed, folding her arms across her pulled-up knees, and rested her chin on top of her crossed arms.

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It's wierd, you know. You get so used to them being there, that it seems like it's normal. No big thing. Like they're supposed to be there. Then when they're gone, it's like suddenly there's a pasrt of you missing. Like a puzzle missing a peice right at it's center. Only, it's where no one can see it; But you know that empty space is there, just waiting to be filled. And only you can see it.

They say when two souls touch, they become inseperable. The two in a sense become a part of each other. Linked in a way that can't be explained. I allways hated being alone, anyway. Maybe that's why I miss him so much.  
Then again, I doubt that's why. When we first became friends, (heck, when we first _met_, ) I sensed something. I just didn't recognise it. They say you know when you first meet your 'true love'. The one you're going to marry. But you don't know it until later.

I guess it's true, huh?

I miss him so much. I wonder how long it'll be (or if I'll ever) find my way back home, back into his arms. Although, I feel like he were here sometimes, It's like I can almost hear his voice in the back of my processor, telling me that everything's gonna be okay.

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The seeker looked up from her datapad long enough to watch a human vehicle make it's way across the desert, kicking up dust in it's hurried journey across the empty landscape. She barely noticed the crimson and navy-blue semi as it sped along the desert.

"Hmmph. Probably late for a delivery and looking for a shortcut." she shook her head at the semi as it navigated the flatland.

"I feel sorry for the driver dumb enough to go offroading in a semi." she chuckled, the scene not even striking her as odd.

"No, on second thought, I take that back." she grinned, standing and shoving the datapad into a subspace pocket.

She jumped off her mountain spot into the air.

"yep, I'm mean. But everyone else is still asleep." she thought.

"hopefully." she added.

She knew Syus would NOT be happy if she single-handedly revealed their location to the Autobots.

But the seeker's spontaneous (and somewhat mischevious) side prodded her to _'just give the human a scare.'_

"Besides, that'll help us in the long run, cause it'll keep the humans out of our area." she decided. "We wouldn't want them to see any of us milling around outside the mountainbase and call the Autobots on us, now would we?" she added, gaining altitude and flying towards the speeding vehicle.

The crimson and dark blue Freightliner semi sped across the dusty desert plain, music blaring loudly from the radio, and out the open window. The 40-something brunette man in the driver's seat hummed along sotly, not even realizing his fingers were drumming the steering wheel in time with the music.

Suddenly, a muave and blue appeared from nowhere and flashed in front of the semi, coming way to close to the front grill.

"What the!.."

If it was a bird, it had to be a damn carzy one, that was for sure, Sparkplug decided.

Jade did a midair flip, and turned around towards the vehicle, landing right in it's path two hundred feet away, grinning like a she-demon.

"Going somewhere?"

The driver opened the door and **BAILED**.

Jade lifted an optic ridge at him. "o-kay. Gotta give him credit for _trying_ to get away." she though amusedly.

The semi didn't slow down, though. In fact, she swore she could hear the engine roar as it accelerated. She realised this _AND_ her mistake right about the time the semi detatched itself from the trailer and transformed.

The red and blue Autobot landed in an impressive feet-first slide, kicking up twin dust trails in his wake. His skid halted right in front of the suprised femmeseeker, his blaster allready in his hand.

"Not you!"

"Oh yes, it's me." A snicker could be heard in the baritone voice.

Jade mentally smacked herself.

High Road grinned behind his vocaliser mask. He had only been on a supply run for the base. And since he looked somewhat like the Autobot leader, Optimus Prime, he had repainted his trailer to suit. It wasn't like he ever used the thing anyway. Besides, it was a good decoy in case the Decepticons should try anything.

"Is it just me, or is Starscream getting a bit girly?" he chuckled to the human, who was standing a few yards away.

Insult **AND** the **Autobot leader**. Oh what a beautiful morning _this_ was turning out to be." Jade thought sourly.

The tall red and blue Autobot crossed his arms smugly. "So, where's blundercracker and sky-twerp?" he chirped.  
The seeker pasted her hands on her hips and offendedly spat "Last I checked I was still female!"

"I know." (Another snicker, although this time, HighRoad couldn't catch himself from being audible. She really thought he was Optimus Prime! That in itself was funny!)

Jade's jaw dropped, her expression one of **"Oh No You Just Did Not!"**

Her head bobbed in that snarky way someone does when they're really mad as she said "Oh, so you think it's funny huh, well I'm not Starscream and in case you haven't noticed you're alone out here!."

She glanced around quickly to be sure, and caught Sparkplug sniggering.

"What are **YOU** laughing at, _CHUCKLES_, you're next!" the human's grin vanished instantly when Jade started took a step towards him. HighRoad tightened his grip on his weapon, hoping not to have to use it, but Jade's comlink came on instead.

Syus's voice came through. He sounded polite, if not...

amused?

"Jade, what's going on out there?" he asked in an oh-so-innocent voice.

He had been watching the entire exchange over the base's external cameras! The green transformer was standing in front of the mountainbase's main viewscreen. His voice took on an amused tone. "Do you require assistance?" Jade and Highroad both caught his tone. HighRoad cocked his head to one side slightly in a sarcastic look. Like he was just _daring_ her to fight him. the **Autobot leader**. **(snicker)**

Jade, on the other hand, knew if she ran, she might have a chance to get away, if she didn't go right back to the base. Otherwise the Autobot would just follow her back to the group's base. On the other hand, if she tried to fight him, well, this was Prime. There was no way _that_ would happen.

Jade, on the other hand, knew if she ran, she might have a chance to get away, if she didn't go right back to the base. Otherwise the Autobot would just follow her back to the group's base. On the other hand, if she tried to fight him, well, this was Prime. There was no way would happen. 

And Syus was just baiting her, taking joy in the fact that she had done exactly what he'd told her to avoid; And was about to get the unholy _SCRAP_ beat out of her by the _Autobot leader_ for it. If she asked him for help, though, he'd never let her hear the end of it. That was, if Prime didn't see Syus leaving the base and figure out where it was.

Either way, she was screwed.

"I'm fine." She relied through gritted teethplates.

"Okay." Syus sounded like he shrugged across the comline.

He also sounded smug.

"Just let me know if you change your mind."

Jade suddenly hated when he used that 'I-don't-care' voice. The jet gave her comm a glare. She looked up, and realized the 'Autobot Leader' was still regaurding her with that slightly amused look.

"Oh, what? you think you've had a bad day? Just wait till later when the rest of my friends wake up!."

He just stood there. He didn't really move much. In fact, it seemed like he was waiting for someone. Oh no. what if the rest of his friends were on their way to meet him here? what if he had silently sent them a signal?

"Look, why don't I go that way, and you just go on with whatever you're doing, allright?" she waved a hand dismissively. " I don't feel like wasting the energy, and I'm sure you don't want to spend any extra time in the repairbay being peiced back together"

"Are you sure about that? I'd hate to see _you_ in peices." there was a hidden chuckle in his voice.

"huh?... **I hope you get a flat tire!**" the jet glared even more, but it didn't seem to effect him. She just knew Syus was watching her, too. She could FEEL his eyes staring at her across the camera feed. He probably thought it was funny, too. She wanted **SO** badly to turn towards the base camera and wave a finger at it.

Pity. Prime would know where it was, then.

"This isn't over Prime." she turned to walk away from him, but also away from the base at an angle.

"Uh-huh. it sure is." He replied.

Jade silently swore as she jumped into the air, heading the opposite direction of her base, in case he followed her, wishing she had stayed in recharge this morning instead of getting up. She wondered what her husband would have done had he been there instead of the Autobot leader...

And there it is! the intoduction story for my husband's fancharacter, HighRoad.

Hope you enjoyed it!

I will have his profile and picture up at my website soon.


	4. 09 Whisper (Hide N Go Sneak)

Title:Hide 'N Go Sneak

Challenge Set: 1

Challenge: whisper

Rating: G

Word Count: 4468

Pairings: none

time frame: canon to an in-progress ficseries, mid-ficseries, actually. canon G1

summary: Syus, Bullet, Gobee, and Jade try to infiltrate the Ark using an old tunnelway inside the center of the volcano, that leads to one of the old shuttle bays. But sneaking around the insides of a volcano is harder than it sounds.

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The darkness flowed around the rocks and sharp volcanic glass inside Mt. St. Hillary's cavernous interior. The dull red intensified, flicking shadows around the walls like so many demons lurking inside of Hell. The three figures paused, suspended halfway down their rappelling wires to double check their coordinates. The shadow on the left coughed softly at the harsh sufuric fumes that burned his intakes at every breath. The one on the right glanced up at the rim of the volcanos center. "Are you sure we're going the right way?" he squeaked, his whisper echoeing around the dimly lit reddish walls. Even though it was barely a whisper, it sounded like a shout over the lazy bubbling and hissing steam below them.

"I'm positive." the grey figure on the left replied. The one in the middle rolled her optics, continuing down half a second before the other two, who had started to bicker. They finally descended to a small ledge, and the jet in the middle, who had reached it first, glanced down. Not two hundred meters below them, the thick red lava, the color of molten steel, bubbled and shifted like boiling mud. The silver-grey mech on the left reached the ledge next, then Gobee, the small black and silver mech on the right. "Well, we're here." the jet, Jade, stated, none too pleased she had to rappelle down, instead of flying. But they were right outside the Autobot ship, and flying would have made her energy signature strong enough to be detected by the Ark's computer, teletraan 1.

like lighting a signal flare, as Syus had put it.

"Wherever here is." she added under her breath.

Bullet, the silver-grey mech on the left glanced at her. "Yeah, but where's the tunnel that's supposed to be here?" he started to feel along the wall, hoping to find some sort of door or other barrier, or even a latch of some sort. Any sign something was there.

Below them, the lava gurgled and hissed, as though daring them to come down into it's hellish depths. Gobee glanced down and "eep"ed softly, and tightened his grip on his rapelling wire. He turned back to where Bullet and Jade stood. "Hurry" he urged. "I don't like it here."

Bullet reached left. "I'm going as fast as I can, Gobee. There's no easy way to see past all these shadows.

Bullet wantd to tell the black and silver car to calm down, and the worst thing he could do was panic. But Gobee allready knew that if he fell of the ledge, his rapelling gear would keep him from falling into the lava.

(Sometimes he though Gobee worried _too_ much.)

The gurgle and snapping of the molten rock gave way to a quiet, low growl, and Gobee huddled closer to the rock wall on his side, away from the edge. Bullet maneuvered toward Jade, signaling he needed to get switch places with her. The jet took hold of her wire, leaned out from the edge, and kicked off, swinging around the outside of where he was standing, putting him in the middle.

"Remember to switch me places when we have to move. We don't want to get our wires twisted. she said. Bullet nodded, still concentrating on the wall. "I could turn on my headlights." gobee offered. "Thanks, but that would be too bright. It would blind us in this darkness." Bullet responded. The low rumbling growl loudened briefly, and Gobee glanced at Jade, Bullet, then back up at the top of the volcano. Jade smirked "Looks like someone allready has his wires in a twist." she thought, glancing at the Gobee with a smirk. a thick cloud of black volcanic ash and smoke billowed up, and Bullet tried not to cough. The form shrouded inside the dark cloud was invisible, his armor blackened by the volcanic smoke. But a pair of beady yellow eyes peered at the trio from behind. Gobee happened to glance over his shoulder, and did a double-take.

"EEEEYAAA!"

"WAH!"

Gobee shrieked like a little girl and latched onto Bullet's arms like a starving leech-glomp, overbalancing him. The silver mech wobbled back and forth precariously over the edge for a minute, then managed to peel the little car off him.

"_Do you mind_?"

"s-s-sorry." Gobee turned around saucer-eyed, willing his fuel pump to stop trying to hammer madly out of his chestplate. There, hovering calmly beside the ledge, was Syus in dragon mode. Well, almost calm. He had an audio-to-audio grin about as wide as any green-turned-soot black dragon could have, which didn't help calm Gobee down any.

(A dragon grinning from audio to audio in a hell-like cave. go figure.)

Bullet mumbled something about hoping the Autobots didn't hear them all the way in the Ark.

"Bullet, I think they heard us all the way on Cybertron." Jade said, rubbing one audio and giving Gobee a look. Gobee glared daggers back. "Sorry. I didn't mean it." she apologized. Syus stifled a snicker. "Let's just keep our minds on the mission, shall we?"

He paused, cleared the static from his vocalizer, and said: " The entry hatch is on the next ledge under this one, about forty feet down. But the ledge is too small for all of you to go at once."

"I'll go." Bullet volunteered. Syus nodded and flapped a few feet further from the edge. Bullet tested his line, then stepped to the edge and turned to face the wall. Then he started down. Meanwhile, the four-pronged circular anchor at the lip of the volcano's bowl started to slip loose from the rock. The boulder shifted and moved under the weight pulling on it. The first prong, on the edge furthest from the volcano, worked it's way loose, and the anchor plate twisted, bending the other two on either side of it. the third creaked under the pressure, but stayed securely wedged in the boulder. Bullet had just dissapeared over the edge of the ledge, leaving only the top of his helmet visible. "Bullet, wait. Our lines are still twisted." Jade went to the edge. "It should be okay." came the response.

Gobee looked up, then suddenly yelled "Look out!"

a boulder the size of Syus's head and shoulders came crashing down, barely missing Bullet and the ledge. Syus dodged it easily. "My cable just came loose!" Bullet yelled, scrambling to find a better handhold. Jade reached out and clipped her lineholder around Bullet's wire, hoping something would make it catch on. The rocks Bullet was hanging onto crumbled, and the silver mech shut off his optics.

The twisted fist-sized cable anchor shot down into the volcano, propelled by Bullet's weight.

The circular claw anchor slammed into Jade's line clip, pulling the wire taut, and sending Jade flying off the edge, suspended between her anchor above, and Bullet below. "You have to hurry up to that ledge. My anchor won't hold us for long."

"Right." Bullet tried to sound cool and calm, but there was a waver in his voice that wasn't there before.

When he had fallen, he'd tried to grab onto the small ledge for a handhold, but the rocks had givern away, leaving an even smaller ledge, and leaving Bullet to climb up the several meters he had fallen, to his destination. He reached for the circular hatch Syus said would be there, and grabbed the handle. It wouldn't turn. "It's locked." he called. Syus flew down, and scrutinized the gold-colored metal for a second, Then pulled out his kitana (sword). "No, wait, don't!..."

the screeching metal cut off the rest of Bullet's sentence. "You thought I was going to cut it off it's hinges, didn't you?" Syus asked, half-amused. Bullet looked at the door, and back at the dragon. "...uh...maybe." Bullet looked a little sheepish. "You have to learn to trust me, Bullet." the dragon admonished softly. Bullet pulled on the door, which opened with an echoing screech of aged, heat-warped metal. He climbed into the narrow shaft and summoned a flashlight from subspace. "We're in." he said, unclipping his cable.

Syus flew back up to where Jade had managed to get back to the ledge and unclip Bullet's cable and anchor, letting it fall into the lava with a hiss. "Go ahead, I'll wait." she said. Gobee stepped to the edge and tested his line. Then glanced up to make sure it wouldn't fall the second he left the ledge. "I'm right here." Syus reassured, meaning he would catch Gobee if the line gave way. But he didn't want to say that, because it would only scare the little car more.

"Just keep your eyes in front of you." Jade offered. If either of them told him not to look down, they knew that was exactly what he would do. And he allready looked up. That was just a reminder of how far into the volcano they were. Gobee made it down quickly, and Bullet reached out a hand to grab him and help unclip his line. "See, it wasn't that bad." he offered a smile for reassurance. Gobee gave him a smile back to say it was okay, but it came out rather weak. Jade came down the line, followed by Syus, who closed the now-permanently-unlocked door after them.

Gobee switched on his headlights, and Bullet cringed in front of him. He quickly flicked them off again. "sorry...I forgot."

In the darkness, the floating pair of eyes belonging to Bullet blinked on and off rapidly to clear the spots in front of them. "Next time, just warn me beforehand, okay?"

"okay."

Bullet handed him a flashlight, and the others turned theirs on. "How long is this tunnel, anyway?" Jade whispered. "Another fifty yards." Syus whispered back from behind her. Sure enough, the tunnel opened up into a small cave. Bullet grabbed a handfull of glowsticks and tossed them out into the dark cave. The dim yellow lights dissapeared into the deep chasm where the floor should have been, but wasn't. "Great." he grumped.

"Well, at least it's not filled with lava like last time we were here." Gobee chirped. Bullet glanced at his sarcastic friend, then down into the chasm. "So, how are we gonna get across?" he asked. "Well, I can carry Gobee over." Jade piped. Then she realized everyone was looking at her. "What? I'm a jet, remember?"

Syus looked thoughtful, then said: "I will carry Bullet over first. You two follow behind. That way, he can break the computer code on the door and take care of any security measures." Jade and Gobee nodded.

Syus transformed back into dragon mode, and Bullet climbed on. "You're sure you can carry him?" Syus asked, motioning to Gobee. "Yeah. He's not that heavy." Jade nodded, glancing at the black BMW.

Syus crouched at the edge of the dropoff, and leapt into the stale air. His green-edged black wings caught the air current, and the dragon flapped twice before gliding to the other side. Once Bullet had climbed off, he hurriedly jumped up and flapped again to return to where Jade and Gobee were. "What's wrong?" Jade asked. "I will take Gobee across. There's some unpredictable air currents." Syus looked at the little car. "You wouldn't make it across carrying him." he reasoned.

Gobee gulped silently, but climbed onto the dragon's back anyway. "It's okay, just hang on. We'll get across just fine." Syus reassured him. He jumped off the ledge and glided across. Jade transformed and followed, going back to robot mode right before landing. Syus was right, and a stray downdraft caught the seekerjet right as she landed. She wobbled, but Bullet caught one arm, and Syus the other. Bullet jutted out a thumb at the closed double doors. "It's locked from the inside." he said.

"I figured as much." Syus reared up on his hind legs, and jammed his foreclaws into the crack between the doors, using his strength to pry them open. Bullet went first, then Gobee, who caught Bullet as he transformed mid-entry. Then Jade, followed by Syus last. Gobee used Bullet's scope-light to see as they crossed the dusty shuttlebay, sweeping it back and forth. "watch for security sensors." Jade whispered. Syus hissed as the shuttlebay doors slammed shut behind him. Jade shot him a look, but it was lost in the darkness between them.

They reached the door that led to the rest of the Ark, and Bullet transformed, deftly removing the doorpanel and crossing a couple wires. The doors screeched open 3/4 of the way and jammed. Syus dove to one side, and Jade the other. The sound could be heard echoing down the corridors outside. "grrr...real smooth, Bullet." the jet hissed. "Yeah, well you try hotwiring a code lock." the silver Megatron-mimic shot back. "Now, children." Syus sigh-whispered. He didn't have to say anything more. At least they knew when to stop. He'd give them that much.

He glanced out the door one way, then again the other. He nodded. Jade and Bullet simultaneously went out the door, pointing their weapons either direction down the hall, on either side of the door. Jade whistled softly, signaling it was clear. Syus and Gobee exited, taking up positions pointing either way, with their backs to the wall facing the door they had just come through. Syus silently lifted two fingers to point to jade and Bullet, and then down the hall to his right. the signal to move out.

The duo tiptoed down the hall to where another hall ended on theirs. Jade glanced quickly around the corner, then double checked. She nodded, and Bullet crossed the doorway so he was standing at the other side. He did a double-check behind Jade, and took watch down the corridor while Jade waved her arm to Syus and Gobee. The two got halfway there when Bullet lifted a hand for them to stop.

Down the corridor adjacent to where they were all lined up, (the same one Bullet was looking down), a green and tan Autobot, a tow truck, crossed the next intersection. As soon as he was out of sight, Jade lifted her arm, but only flicked her hand, instead of her whole arm like before. That meant to be quiet. when they were behind Jade, she glanced out, and nodded. Syus motioned Gobee across.

Once Gobee was behind Bullet, Syus and Gobee quickly tiptoed (as quietly as a 5000-pound green dragon with wings can, of course) down the hall Jade and Bullet were still at the end of. They paused at the intersection of the corridor the autobot had just come down, and Syus waved an arm for Jade and Gobee to hurry. They scampered down the hall and Gobee came up on Bullet's side of the hallway, while Gobee was beside Syus.

Something clicked behind them. All four rounded the corner, (Syus and Jade right, and Bullet and Gobee left), as several shots whizzed down the corridor from the direction they had just come, scoring the walls where they had been standing. Syus pulled out his pistol, and the others followed suit. "They found us." Bullet silently radioed to Syus. Syus optic-glanced in the direction of the hall, then back to Bullet and nodded. Bullet nodded back. "Now." Syus radioed.

All four turned the corner and fired at the Autobots. The white Lancia and green and tan tow truck ducked behind the cover of their respective corners, and Syus and Bullet ran down the corridor towards their destination. Jade and Gobee unleashed a non-stop volley of weaponfire to keep their adversaries behind cover. Syus and Bullet reached where the corridor made a T with the next hallway across, and a door in front of them.

They glanced around the corners again quickly turned the corner.

Jade tossed something to Gobee, amidst their weaponfire.

"Kay." Bullet radioed, and The two ducked back from their coverfire, each keeping an eye on the hallway behind the other. Gobee and Jade jerked the ends of the tripwire taut as Wheeljack and Hoist came barreling down the hall towards them. As soon as the duo hit the floor, the jet and BMW ran in opposite directions away from each other. There _had_ been other hallways adjacent to the one the shuttlebay was on, running paralell with the main one they were all now on. But the group hadn't been able to see those halls because of the darkness.

When they reached these, they glanced either way, and ran up towards the hall Syus and Bullet were now at. Syus had seen them split up, and kept an eye on the two Autobots in the center hall as Jade and Gobee reached their ends of the hall. "It's us." Jade radioed. they turned their corners so they were all on the same hall again, the one the door was on, and Bullet and Syus took positions on either side of the door, facing down the center hall. And in a clear line of sight, too. This meant they had to hurry.

Bullet silently counted the seconds as he keyed in the doorcode. As soon as Syus and Bullet entered the small room, Gobee and Jade moved from their positions at the ends of the hall to the door. "Nobody move." Syus commanded. The two Autobots sitting at the security office consoles didn't budge. In fact, they were unusually still, which made Bullet slightly nervous. Syus kept his pistol trained on the Autobots while Bullet kept the door open and kept watch with Gobee. Jade walked over to the console on the wall adjacent to the two Autobots and palmed the microchip there. She walked over to where they were sitting. "So long, guys." she patted one on the shoulder sarcastically.

And it fell over.

"Dummies!" Bullet exclaimed. Syus swallowed a curse. "Lets go!" He ran out the door, Bullet following closely behind, aiming their guns either direction as they went.

"Well, guess you won't mind if I take this, then." Jade grabbed the energon cube sitting on the console next to the dummies.

Ans Gobee ran facefirst into the clear forcewall that had been erected in front of the door, like a pigeon into plexiglass.

wham!

"owww.."

Jade looked around the edges of the doorframe, then went back to the console to look for the switch under where the cube had been sitting. nothing.

"Let me out!" Gobee pounded on the clear barrier with both fists. no effect. "Stand back." Syus ordered. He took out his sword and sliced through the clear barrier. nothing! It was like slicing through thin air. The forcefield just flowed around the weapon and back to where it was before as though nothing had happened. "emmitters, it has to have emitters." Bullet started feeling around the outside of the doorframe, while Jade searched the inside. The edges of the doorpanels dissapeared underneath the edges of the ones surrounding it all the way around. There was no way to remove the doorpanels without first removing about twenty others.

"Go. just go!" Jade yelled through the field.

"But you have the chip." Syus countered.

"better no chip than getting caught!"

Gobee looked at her with a tense look. The silver-grey mech, Bullet, and the green dragon, Syus, kept searching the outer doorframe as they argued. And didn't see the two shadows creeping down either side hall towards the next intersection from them.

"LOOK OUT!" Jade yelled but it was too late. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe came barrelling up the center hall. At the same time, Prowl and Jazz rounded either end of the hall the group was on, surrounding them completely. Jade smacked the doorframe with her open palm. "Drat."

Syus and Bullet handed over their guns. "How did you know we were here?" Syus asked. "Wheeljack and Hoist called for backup before you tripped them." Prowl looked pointedly at Jade and Gobee. "You told us to be creative." the jet shrugged. Prowl gave her a flat look. Syus looked equally un-enthused. "It's a good thing we're only using laser-tagging pistols, and not real weapons." Syus said. Jade smiled sweetly at the dragon. "We were hoping you would have gotten further, too." Sideswipe teased. Jazz keyed the code to remove the invisible barrier.

"I knew we should have been more carefull." Jade noted. Syus gave the jet a clearly aggrivated look. "You knew that cube was a trap, yet you took it anyway."

Jade glanced back into the mockup security office. "No, actually, I didn't. But it _was_ pretty good bait." she took a sip. "Here." she tossed Prowl the datachip she had taken from the console. Syus narrowed his optics slightly. Just enough Jade could tell he did, and lowered his voice a couple levels. "How many times must I tell you to stick to the plan and take what we are only here to take." Jade looked away and sighed. "Sorry. I guess I'm just a sucker for Sunny's high-grade." She gave the yellow Lamborgini a smile, and lifted her cube slightly in a mock-toast. "Thanks, Sunny. I owe you one." Sunstreaker looked smug. "See, Prowl? I told you it would work. Prowl gave the yellow Lamborgini a look similar to the one Syus gave Jade.

"Yes, for a simulation, perhaps. But I sincerely doubt any Decepticon would want to steal _green_ energon.

About that time, Red Alert came bounding down the hall excitedly. "Well? did it work or not?" he demanded.

Gobee suddenly found interest in the floor tiles, Syus ruffled his wings (to try to look intimidating, Jade guessed), Jazz just looked at Prowl, and Sunstreaker and Sideswipe tried to slip away quietly. "Where do you two think you're going? You have reports to fill out. This is the **Ark's security** we're talking about here. You can't just take something like this like it's some sort of a trivial game or something..." Bullet shook his head, and Jade tried to down the entire content of her energon cube, and wound up choking on it.

Prowl held up a hand for the young security director to stop. "Yes, Red Alert, it worked." the white and red ferarri opened his mouth, but Prowl cut him off. "exactly as specified, with no power fluctuations or field weknesses." That seemed to be what Red Alert was wondering, because he seemed satisfied. Jade finished coughing and managed "It works."

Bullet grinned "Yeah, ever seen a bird run into a window?" Gobee glared daggers at him. Jade giggled, and Sideswipe and Jazz chuckled at the mental image of Jade smacking nosefirst into the invisible wall.

The group headed towards the main part of the ship, where Wheeljack and Hoist would be waiting with Prime for their reports. "The dummies were a good idea." Jade noted. "Considering Wheeljack and Hoist knew we were coming before we even got to the mock-security office." Jade got a thoughtful look, and glanced at Bullet.

"security cameras."

Prowl nodded. "They were positioned exactly the same as the ones around the actual security office, like you requested." Bullet gave him an appraising look. the silver-grey Megatron-lookalike was allways trying to compare his skills against those of the Autobot tactician. Whether it be in a strategic videogame, battle simulations like this one, or just a simple discussion of tactics. "We should try an actual real-time drill." he grinned.

"You would have to discuss that with Prime." Prowl resonded. "Of course." Bullet nodded.

When they reached the command center, Wheeljack and Hoist were waiting, and High Road was there, also, going over the security videos of the drill. HighRoad turned around, and grinned at Jade. "So, how'd it go?" he asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. Jade smirked back. "Exactly the way it was supposed to." Bullet summarized. Prime regaurded the group. "Although I am concerned about the method you used to get into the Ark." he added.

Syus stepped forward. "I doubt any Decepticon has the skills or layout knowledge nessesary to use the same means we did."

"I'm jus. curious."Jazz said from one side. "How _did_ you guys get in, anyway?"

Syus tried not to let his smile show, knowing his route had been unexpected and unconventional. "Well, there's a shuttlebay at the opposite end of the corridor as your mock-up securtiy office." He couldn't keep his smile in any longer.

"You might try locking the door."

Prime tried not to show his suprise. "But those doors have been blocked by the mountain."

Bullet joined in at this point with: "There's a cave... well, chasm, actually, right outside it. We took the tunnel from the center of the volcano, then flew over the fissure, and came in through the bay doors."

He stopped, then added: "You might want to reinforce the barrier on the tunnel, though. The metal has been weakened by the constant heat. It was fairly easy to get through."

HighRoad turned off the video. "So, Wheeljack's new invention works, huh?" he glanced at the Lancia scientist, who looked hopefull.

"Yup. It didn't even go boom this time." Jade said, and canted a grin at Wheeljack, so he'd know she was only trying to be funny.

Prowl typed something else on the datapad he was holding. "I believe the simulation accurately tested the limits and funtion of Wheeljack's device. He typed something else. "Also, our overall response time to the scenario was 20 better than usual." He looked up. Prime nodded. "Very well, Wheeljack. It seems your new device is a success. You may finish creating the few you will need to improve the Ark's security. There was a smile in his optics, although it was hidden by his facemask. "You can start installing them tomorow."

Wheeljack's earfins lit up bright blue like an audio-to-audio grin. "Thank you, sir!. Oh, i'd better go get started if I'm gonna make several more of these by tomorow." The white and green Lancia hurried off to his workshop with the prototype to get started on making more.

Syus turned to his group. "Good work everyone." he gave Jade a critical look, and shook his head at her. Jade just sipped her high-grade, daring him to say anything. The green dragon turned to Prime, having forgotten his group still had to be dismissed by the Autobot commander. It had taken some getting used to, taking orders from someone else, instead of being solely in charge of his group.

Prime nodded. "Well done. I believe, however, you and your comrades have a door to help repair?" He turned to where Hoist was waiting for them at the door. Syus glanced at the green and tan tow truck, then back to Prime. "Yes, sir." he turned and followed Hoist, the others trailing after him. Gobee and Jade both mumbling softly once they thought they were out of Prime's hearing range.


	5. 10 Scream (Bored)

**Title:** Bored.

**Challenge Set:** 1

**Challenge:** Scream

**Rating:** G

**Word Count:** 597

**Pairings:** none

**Time Frame:** Around the tail end of my ficseries, after Jade's group joins the Autobots.

**Summary:** Jade is on security monitor duty, and she's so bored she could just scream...

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Bored.

She was so bored.

Jade rapped her fingertips agains the top of the console.

"boredboredboredbored..."

she stopped for a minute, then sighed. She swiveled her chair to one side then the other in front of the security console. The small security office was quiet enough, the jet could hear the dust balls rolling around the ventilation duct overhead. Even the quiet "swish" when one passed over the grating. Jade leaned all the way back in her seat, so she was gazing at the ceiling, and slowly turned her chair in a circle.

panel, panel, light. panel, panel, light.

she sped up a little.

panel, panel, light, panel, panel, swish (another dustball), light, panel, panel, (yawn), swish.

She was starting to get dizzy. _Anything_ was better than this. It was _so_ absolutely quiet, with absolutely **nothing** to do. Jade was about ready to scream. Heck, some music would be welcomed. Actually, Devastator arriving on their front steps and trying to reduce the mountain to rubble would be welcomed compared to this... torcher.

She yawned again, turning back to the screens. On the external cameras, a flock of birds flew by in the distance. Aside from that, there was nothing. The hallways were empty, everyone was in recharge, or out on night patrol. (yawn).

The soft swishing sound in the ventilation duct had changed into a soft rythmic

"tic-tic-tic."

"Must be some dirt up there. I might have to tell someone about that. Then again, no. They might suggest I be the one to clean it out." She scowled at the thought.

"swish, tic tic tic tic, swish, tic tic tic tic, clink tic tic tic tic, clinkclink, tic tic tic tic tic."

Jade raised one optic ridge at the noise.

"tic, tic, clink, click, tink, tic, tic, tic..."

It sounded almost musical. Well, considering you could hear your own ventilators quite loudly in the stifling silence, a _pin drop_ might be considered musical at this point.

"tic, tic, clink, click, tink, tic, tic, tic..." Jade didn't move her head, but just rolled her optics upward, as though searching for some invisible source.

"tic tic tic..."

A pair of yellow horns rose up behing her, followed by a pair of gleaming blue eyes, framed by a yellow helmet.

"Tic, clink, tictic, clinkclink, tictic, tickclink"

"Hey Jade!"

"AAAH!" Jade screeched and shot forward out of her chair. She turned around and regaurded Bumblebee with a half-crazed look. "Dangit, Bee, you about gave me a fuel-pump attack!" the jet put a hand over her cockpit window, as if it would calm her racing fuel pump. "How'd you get in here, anyway?"

"I didn't mean to scare you." Bumblebee half-chuckled. "You didn't answer the doorchime, so I let myself in."

Jade mused that was probably Red Alert's doing. The white and red security chief probably didn't want to be bothered, or, rather 'distracted from his duties', as he would put it, so he probably found a way to disconnect it.

Jade glanced at the door, cleared the static from her vocaliser (although it was such a human thing, it came out sounding more like a half-strangled frog), and squared her shoulders as she reclaimed her seat.

"I thought you might want some company." Bumblebee tokk the chair at the adjacent console, and turned it to face her. "Sure, thanks."

After a minute she added "Just...don't tell anyone you startled the scrap outta me, okay?"

"Okay" the minispy grinned. Jade wondered if he had done it on purpose, but it didn't really matter, anyway.


	6. 12 Loyalty (What Goes Well Ends Well

**Title:** What Goes Well Ends Well ...Right?

**Challenge Set:** 1

**Challenge:** loyalty

**Rating:** G

**Word Count:** 2691

**Pairings:** none

**time frame:** canon to an in-progress ficseries, mid-ficseries, actually. canon G1, before the Kintari (Jade's group) join the Autobots. Takes place right before "_Plan B: Catchpoint_"

**summary:** The group tries to raid a Gasoline Shipping and storage plant for energon cubes. Unfortunately, the Autobots always arrive just in the nick of time.

**Characters**

**Windstriker** (purple and tan A-10 thunderbolt. Alt mode the same type of plane as Powerglide)

**Needle** (Black, Blue and Green Ford F-150 pickup truck. Not sure what order those colors go in. I think it's black front, blue midsection, green back end. Or is it green midsection, blue back end? meh. anyway.)

**Mic** (white and grey Camaro Z-28)

**Dusk** (pink ,red, and blue Cybertronian (old style, jetlike) flier)

**Syus** (green iridescent American dragon (metallic with blue and yellow hues and black wings)

**Jade** (F-15E Eagle, muave (rose) and blue in color)

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It was about 5:30 Pm., when the white camaro Z-28 roared down I-75 southbound, weaving and bobbing between cars, their honking echoing after him. A green, blue and black Ford F150 roared after him, trying desperately to miss the cars and other vehicles in his path, but still somehow keeping up with the camaro.

"Okay guys, you know what you have to do. Windy and I'll be up here." a female voice said across the stereo.

The two reduced their speed slightly and switched lanes. A red toyota honked as the white camaro cut him off, with the F150 behind him. "Come on slowpoke." Mic (the camaro) jibed. "Even that Toyota's faster than you." he let out a half-chuckle.

"Yeah, yeah." the F150 replied, sounding not-so-thrilled. "I'm behind you."

The two paused at the offramp light, then started to turn left onto Needmore road. Needle, the pickup truck, waited for his moment, starting to turn normally, then swerved past the Toyota and zoomed past Mic and through the next stoplight as it turned turned yellow.

"Hey!"

"See ya! who's the slowpoke now?" Needle cackled as he flew down the road. Mic agitatedly revved his engine. The light turned green, and the white Camaro did a peelout and shot down the road. He got to the green light at the next road, but there was no sign of the pickup truck transformer anywhere.

"Where'd he go?" Mic wondered aloud. Then he checked his rearview. The truck had been waiting for him at the entrance to the gas station on the corner. The big pickup roared up behind the camaro and came about 2 inches from his back bumper and beeped.

"mroop, mroop!"

"ha ha." Mic deadpanned, and tapped his brakes.

"SkRRRRT!"

The comlink came on. "Quit playing around you two!" the agitated voice came across.

"You're gonna get the cops on your tails!"

"aww, you're no fun Jade." Needle teased.

He recieved a razzberry across the comm, and it clicked of with a snicker.

The two came to the corner of Needmore and Brandt and waited patiently to turn the corner. Well, patient if you count Mic was revving his engine again. Bullet revved his back and crept up on the camaro's back bumper.

"rrRRMMmm..." "rrRRRRrmmmmRRRrmmmm."

"Brum-brum-brum-brum-grRRRrrr."

the light turned green and Mic did a peelout. Needle accelerated, waiting until they were almost to where the two lanes merged into one. The pickup truck swerved around Mic at the last second, honked once, and roared down the road...

-----------------------------

The two slowed to a measurable pace by the time they had reached the apartments across from the BP plant, and turned nonchalantly onto the road running beside it. They pulled up on the next street over, and parked. Jade cruised down, shutting of her engines so as not to be too loud, and glided to the ground. "Windy, stay in the air for now, and keep a lookout for Autobots." Jade radioed.

"Gotchya." came the reply. The purple A-10 thunderbolt glided higher in the air, and circled around.

The trio crept out into the field beside the gasoline storage/shipping plant, ignoring the suprised cry of the humans in the nearby houses. "They won't be able to call the Autobots in time." Jade smirked.

"No, but Wright Patterson Airforce base is, like, ten miles away." Mic hurriedly fetched the fuel siphoning equipment and opened the square metal plate that led to the underground fuel tanks. Jade silently eeped, and brought out the cube-making machine. Everything was hooked up and started to create small, glowing yellowish energon cubes.

"Windy, how's it look?" she radioed

"Just fine, from up here."

"Well, keep an eye out for jets. There's an Airforce base nearby here." Mic added.

Windstriker circled again, spotting a group of cars racing down the road running paralell to Brandt Pike.

"Jade, there's a bunch of cars and a semi coming down Old Troy Pike." she radioed.

"Just a few more, and we'll be outta here." Jade glanced at her coworkers, and started loading the cubes into Needle's truck bed.

The red and blue semi turned and roared down Stanley avenue, his friends right behind him.

"They're here." Windstriker radioed, noticing the man at the security gaurd's station by the front gate watching the trio.

"Let's go, come on, move!" Mic started pulling up the fuel siphon tubes from the underground gas tanks.

Ironhide, Prime, and Brawn pulled into the front of the shipping plant. Needle looked up as Windstriker swooped down, hovering over the gaurd's building. The security gaurd yelled something, and pointed at the trio, then fled across the street, dissapearing in-between the apartment buildings.

"How many cubes?" Jade started shoving as many as possible in Mic's trunk, shutting the glass hatch-trunk lid.

"We'll count them later." Mic started his engine and revved it slightly, anxious to leave. Jade shoved a couple cubes in her storage compartments, and put the rest in Needle's truck bed, making sure they were secure.

"Go!" she said, and took off to help Windstriker distract the Autobots. The muave and blue jet swooped down towards where the purple A-10 was leaning casually against the gaurd building, and the Autobots walked up.

"Where are the others?" Prime asked. "

What othes?" Windstriker replied innocently, optics flitting over the tall, masculine build of the Autobot leader. She realised she was staring about the same time Jade did.

"Windy!" Jade snapped. "Get your head out of the clouds!"

The F-15 fired off a row of shots at the autobots. Brawn and Ironhide fired back, but missed. the purple femmeseeker did a barrel roll, and circled again, landing atop one of the huge cylindrical above-ground fuel tanks.

"Neener neener neener!" she called.

Brawn raised his gun to fire, but Prime stopped him. "No." he signaled for them to hold their fire, and glanced back at Windstriker. the purple and tan plane smiled, and took off, flying up to perch beside Jade atop the fuel tank.

"That's what they want us to do. Those tanks are filled with fuel. The explosion would destroy everything in the area." Prime explained.

Meanwhile, the black, green, and blue pickup truck and white Camaro Z-28 had reached the offramp, and sped down the highway headed north. the two radioed the pair of perching femmes.

"We're on the road." Needle reported.

The two excellerated from 80 to 90 miles per hour, weaving and bobbing around traffic.

Windstriker took off, and Jade hovered a few meters over the storage tank.

"How about a little something to keep our auto-friends busy?" the jet aimed an armcannon at the fuel tank below her.

"Jade, don't!" windstriker glanced at the Autobot leader again, and a smile flickered across her lip components. She turned back to Jade with a scowl. "There's humans nearby. The explosion would injure, if not kill who-knows how many." she stated.

Jade glanced at her with a shocked look. "I wasn't... I mean... " she glanced at the Autobots.

"Fine."

She fired a parting shot at the trio of autobots before flying away.

Meanwhile, Mic and Needle swerved in-between the cars, trucks, and sometimes using the emergency lane to avoid the mid-evening traffic.They cleared the traffic and had some open road, so they swerved back and forth in a sort of highway hopscotch, first Mic in the lead, then Needle would accelerate and get in front of him.

They were so busy trying to cut each other off, they didn't notice the two low-slung sportscars as they came roaring up. The two Lamborginis, one red, one yellow, zoomed past and accelerated, kicking up a cloud of dust in Mic's headlights.

"Oh, they think they're so fast, huh?" Mic snorted, gunning his engine, and accelerating to catch up.

"C'mon, Sunny, let's show these jokers what we can really do." the red Lamborgini said, acellerating just a little more, but not enought to lose their followers.

The white camaro sped up to 120 miles per hour. Needle sped up behind him slightly, but let him go. "This isn't going to end well." he muttered.

The black F-150 pickup accelerated to the edge of 100mph to catch up before something really bad happened.

The red and yellow sportscars zipped around a blue car, eliciting an angry honk.

"Humans." Sunstreaker muttered.

"They just don't kow how to drive, do they?" the yellow sportscar swerved around a minivan, his low-slung road-hugging design allowing him to maneuver more easily than the Camaro that was straining to catch up.

"Slow down bro. Or he's never gonna catch up." Sideswipe joked. Sunstreaker slowed slightly, and caught a glimpse of the white car in his rearview sensor. A few more cars, and the highway was open again.

"Thought you could lose me, huh? well here I am!" Mic gunned huis engine again, R.P.M.s screaming around his frame as he strained to catch up.

The Lamborginis sped up again, and zoomed down the highway, out of sight. Mic growled something and slowed to let Needle catch up. The two sped along at 80 miles per hour, Mic still fuming silently.

Jade and Windstriker appeared from over the trees to the left,

"Exit, now!" Jade snapped. Needle slammed on his brakes and swerved sharply right, wheels striking up gravel as he almost missed the onramp.

Mic kept going.

"Mic, those Lamborginis you're chasing are Autobots." Jade added, voice tense. The white Camaro slammed on his brakes.

Sure enough, a hundred meters away were the two Lamborginis, parked in the middle of the highway facing each other. the front end of the yellow one was slightly in front of the red one.

And they were backed by a firetruck-transformer, a Highway Patrol Car-former, a black jeeplike 'former, and a grey and white Autobot who looked almost like an identical twin of the highway patrol car-former.

Mic swore and swerved off the road, transforming as he went.

"Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Inferno, Trailbreaker, Prowl, and Bluestreak." Jade informed him as she and Windstriker landed beside him.

"You could have told me earlier, you know." Mic said, glancing at her nervously. Jade looked at windstriker, then back at Mic. "I think we can carry him, don't you? make for a quick getaway?" she said.

"What!? no, you'll drop me!" Mic protested.

"Cover fire." Windstriker pointed out.

"Drat." Jade replied.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had transformed and started towards them, guns drawn. "I'll give you coverfire, get out of here." Jade fired off a rapid string of shots at the opposition, and mic ran up the nearby exit, transforming and engine gunning before his wheels hit the pavement.

Trailbreaker activated his forcefield, blocking the weaponfire Jade fired at the group. Windstriker joined Jade, firing off row after row of shots...

-----------------------------------------

Syus turned around as the foursome entered the main cavern. Needle drove over to a corner and transformed, haphazardly dumping his load of cubes in a pile, and hurried back to help Jade and Mic, who were dragging a heavily-damaged Windstriker between them.

One wing dangled by a couple wires, and her chest and midsection armor was blackened and burned in places, and had a few holes blasted in it in places that were throwing sparks.

The purple Thunderbolt held one foot slightly off the floor, trying not to bump her damaged ankle. Her head was down, and the bearely-concious plane's optics flickered. She didn't look up, but it was obvious she was upset, and in pain.

the green winged dragon rushed over to hep the two lay the purple plane on the rock flooring. Windstriker whimpered softly, but didn't say anything.

"What. happenned." Syus demanded, voice full of cold fury. He glanced up, amber eyes flashing yellow angrily.

"the... Autobots." Windstriker managed. Needle ran out of the cavern to go fetch his tools. Dusk came over carrying a few tools to work on what she could while Needle was getting his. The pink and red flier knelt beside the plane.

"You see.. they don't care who you are. So long as you are their enemy, and trying to get energy from this planet, that is so full of it. They want it all for themselves, and the humans. If you are even trying to get energy to survive with, they think of you as their enemy." she said softly. She fetched a small scanner from her toolbox and started going over the worst of the damaged exometal.

"If you are their enemy, they would rather shoot you then ask questions and try to come to a peacefull resolution. They claim they are defenders of peace. This world has energy enough for all of us. Why should we have to ask their permission to have what we have to have for survival?" the jetlike flier shook her head. "That is like a human asking someone if they can breathe their air." She took out another tool, and started to mend the sparking wires.

"But..." Windstriker started, optics flickering again.

"Shhhh." Dusk soothed. "It'll be okay. you'll be fine with a few repairs." she added, sealing the worst set of sparking wires, and pulled out a small hypo. The green dragon, Syus, glanced at her. "It's just a painkiller. It willl take the edge off." the green mech nodded. There was a small hiss, and Windstriker relaxed slightly, her optics dimming as she went to sleep.

Syus stared off into space for a second, and his expression hardened. "I want to know what happened. Jade?" he turned his scrutinizing look on the seekerfemme.

Said jet glanced at Mic."The Autobots intercepted us on the highway. I don't know how they anticipated what route we were going to take, unless they had both the highways covered." she looked worried for a second. "They may be more organized than we thought they were." she looked at Syus, who nodded.

"Mic." he turned to the white Camaro next. Mic looked at Windstriker with an almost guilty expression.

"The Autobots cut us off. They barracaded the highway. Windstriker and Jade tried to give me coverfire so I could get away." he looked at the floorpanels.

"And where was Needle?" Syus asked. Jade interrupted. "They split up. So our cargo would make it back safely. We had every intention of getting back intact. We.. didn't know they had a forcefield shield device." she stated. she glanced at Mic, knowing she'd just lied for him. He had disobeyed her order to exit the highway, which was what had gotten them into the fight. Needle came running in, and knelt across from Dusk with his toolbox.

"So they started it?" Syus asked in a softer voive, glancing at where Dusk and needle were working dutifully to repair Windstriker."Uh, depends on what you mean." mic glanced away, suddenly finding the lines and shadows of the wall to his left quite interesting.

"On the highway." Syus clarified.

"Oh, yeah, yeah. they did."

Syus lifted an optic ridge in question. after a second, Mic noticed the expression on the green leader's face.

"They tried to run me off the road!" he added. "Didn't they?" he looked at Needle, who looked up and nodded. After a moment of studying the wall across from him, Mic finally said "This is war, Syus, it's not shoot at them a few times and run away. Unless we can find a way home..."

Syus cut him off, optics flaring dark yellow. "I know, John. Next time, we will have to move faster, be more accurate." the green dragon looked around at each of his warriors. His eyes fell on Windstriker, and his face darkened angrily. he looked up at his group.

"The Autobots will pay for what they have done. For nearly killing one of us for doing no more than trying to get energy to survive with." He turned back to the computer, catching the reflection in the screen.

"that, I make my oath." His optics flashed bright yellow, then dimmed back to their normal amber color.

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Just so you know, John is Mic. the group sometimes call one another by their other (human) names. Yeah, I know. I'll try to stop doin that. It usually only happens when one of them are really upset about something.

Also, there's the review button (points) I'm sure you know how to use it. ()

And if there's a fanchar you want to see more of (or the other way around), please let me know.


	7. 92 Shopping (Shopping Trip)

**Author's notes:** Many thanks to Cyrstal Shekeira, who co-wrote with me. And I just had to mention this.. There was one funny that I edited out. when they were walking into the mall, and I didn't know this till I read it on someone's livejournal, I forget who, but a wanker is a slang term. The line of text in the fic went something like this:

_"You'd think the humans in Central City would be used to seeing autobots by now. But by the way they were looking at the group as they walked through the mall, it was as though they'd never seen giant **wanking** robots before."_

It's been four days, and I'm still snickering over the giant wanking robots thing. (snickers)

Anyway, I dunno why I wanted to point that out, but it's just one of those things I'm easily amused by, I guess.

anyway, on to the fiction.

:-)

------------------------------

It was about 1 in the afternoon when the beat up old black and red chevy cavalier pulled up to the ark. The brunette man in the driver's seat, who was in his late 20s or so, chirped. "Home sweet home!" His brown hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and his brown eyes were hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, and he glanced up at the Ark's boosters. The blonde in the passenger side glanced at him.

Jade, the blonde in the passenger side, followed his look, seeing a shadow there. she leaned forward to get a better look. "Eh, just looks like a bird, or something." she thought.

Spike, Carly, Bumblebee, and Ironhide were chatting outside the blast doors, and waved to them as they pulled in and parked the car, which had since been dubbed "the Wayfarer", because they had used it to go back and forth between their own universe and Jade's. They stepped out, and the blonde womand dissapeared in a blue flash, instantly replaced by a muave and blue colored femme seekerjet.

The long-haired brunette man, James, or, Jamey, to his friends, also got out, and waved "Hey guys!" he, too, dissapeared in a blue, flash, and reappeared in his other form. A black and white autobot with a Porsche alt. mode, and blue visor. He grinned up at the ark's boosters. "Hey Flare!" he yelled, waving madly. The jet gave him a funny look, then glanced up at the harpy eagle perched on the ridge above the boosters. "Oh, so someone else knows of my favorite perch, huh?" she joked, and eyed the grey avian that looked down when he yelled.

Flare shuffled on the rim of the great orange booster, her head tilted to the side as she took in this new arrival. Her claws tapped reflectively on the metal; in one fluid motion, she rose up, transforming. There she perched, her pyramidal black legs dangling over the edge. "And who might this be?" she called cheerfully below, crest arched high over her brow ridges.

Jazz looked up "Da chick I toljya about dat was on vacation!" Jade gave him a look. "I can introduce myself, thanks." she said in sarcasm. "Hi, I'm Jade! I see you found my spot." she looked up at the femme for a second, then shugged and turned on the afterburners on her heels, flying up to hover beside where the grey femme was standing. "Hi." she said.

Flare smiled softly and reached out with a clawed black hand in offering to the other femme. "And I'm Solarflare," she replied in kind. "You like it up here, too? It's nice, especially in the evenings. I like to sit here and watch the boys come in."

The jet nodded and landed on the booster beside the femme.

"Yeah, uh, Jazz told me about you, somewhat. He didn't say where you were from or anything." she wondered what part of Cybertron the grey femme was from. The last she'd heard, the only femmes there were Elita's group. And Flare didn't look like any of them.

Solarflare grinned over the lip of the booster to the Porsche below. "Hopefully they were good things!" she tossed down before turning back to the jet-based femme. "A small suburb of Iacon before things turned sour," she allowed, folding her wings along her spine. "I joined up with Elita-1's group not long after. Didn't spend too much time around the base, though."

The jet nodded, glancing down at Jazz, who waved and headed inside. "So, are you going shopping with the rest of us later on? I heard the Central City Mall is one of the biggest around here."

Solarflare cocked her head to the side, crest up. "Actually, I didn't have any plans tonight, other than possibly scrounging Windcharger up for a game of Cribbage. Raj is out, too," she chuckled, folding her arms. "I don't see why not."

"Cool."...

the jet thought for a second "What's scribbage?" she looked confused.

"Cribbage?" the wild grey femme repeated. "Oh, it's a human card game. I like it better than poker. Less high-grade involved."

Jade grinned "Oh... Bluestreak would probably like that." she chuckled at the memory of the last poker game.. poor Blue. "Well, I'm heading down to the rec. room. See you later?"

Flare inclined her head. "Surely."

"Okay, see you then." The jet jumped off the booster and glided down, heading inside.

About an hour or so later, Jazz found the two femmes in the rec. room. "So, who all's going shopping?" Jade asked leaning back in her seat.

"Well... Carly an' 'Bee wanted ta take a look around.. An I guess "Flare decided ta take Windcharger along..." the porsche shrugged.

They arrived at the mall, and Jazz pulled up so carly could get up. "Everyone remember where we parked, now." he joked.

You'd think the humans in Central City would be used to seeing autobots by now. But by the way they were looking at the group as they walked through the mall, it was as though they'd never seen giant walking robots before.

Solarflare winged over, extending her talons and landing with a delicate flourish on the pavement. Settled, she transformed and began walking towards the group.  
They waited for her to catch up, and headed inside.

Jazz went one direction, towards the Spin House music store, and Carly spotted a baby supply shop. Bumblebee followed her.

"Oooh, Spencers." Jade wandered that direction, realizing Windcharger was looking a bit lost. "Come on, we can meet up with Carly and the others later." she grinned.

Flare peered around; none of these stores had been around when she had walked the Earth as a human, Quite frankly, the last time she'd shopped was that three-day pass in Jamaica with Mirage little over four months ago. She cocked her head at Jade's call and nodded, smothering a small giggle with the back of her hand at Windcharger's face.

Jade had to duck under the hanging ornaments and whatnot at the mouth of the store, practically kneeling to get in. "have fun." the teenage man in goth at the counter chirped. He spotted the other two. "I think." he added. Jade smiled and nodded. The young man obviously looked quite scared at seeing a troupe of three giant walking robots.

"You break it, you buy it." he added.

As she passed the young male, Flare smiled down at him. Glacing around, she noticed that the store catered to a more ... adventurous ... clientel. There were some things in here that you couldn't use with a metallic body!

Jade glanced around at the various pewter fountains with wizards, dragons, dolphins, and headed to the back where the blacklights were. There were also some t-shirts with interesting sayings on it. Windcharger picked up a bottle with pink gel inside. "What's this?" he asked innocently. Jade blinked.  
then blushed.  
"Charger"  
she trailed off, holding back giggles. She didn't know how to tell him he'd just picked up a bottle of 'intimate massage oil'. She spotted the blacklights, and went over to where the posters and lavalamps were. "Ooh, I should put one of these on my christmas list..." "So what kind of stuff do you like, flare? blacklights, party strobes, things that blink and light up different colors? She browsed throught some tye-dye print posters.

Carefully, Solarflare brushed past some of the items the jet-femme named. "Well ... there was that lava lamp Jazz gave us one Christmas, but Raj isn't too fond of it. I think it somehow offends his inner Elite." She grinned at Windcharger and turned towards some assortments on the wall. "I don't mind glowy things ... I'm rather fond of glow sticks."

the femmeseeker nodded and looked over at the various glowstick bracelets, necklaces, and various other items. "we should get a blacklight for the rec. room. it makes bright colors glow kinda like a glow stick..." she trailed off, imagining what the room would look like with a blacklight, a strobe, and a few other things.

She then imagined Prowl scowling over it and chuckled a bit. "nah.." she shrugged and headed for the door.

With Windcharger peering at some of the store's more interesting items, the grey femme said her good-byes to the shocked clerk and ducked back through the doors and into the warm sunlight. With a glance at Jade, she bit her lower lip thoughtfully. Was there anything around that she could possibly want?

Slowly, she turned, fanning her wings idly. There was a small vendor sitting on one of the curbs, long swatches of cloth fluttering in a light breeze. And there it was: her one vanity. Reaching out, she touched Jade on the wingtip. "C'mon," she said, tipping her head in that direction.

the jet followed.

On swift pyramidal feet, Flare walked briskly towards the vendor. A short balding man was perched on a stool, counting the money he'd just taken from two teenagers who were now walking away. As her shadow loomed over him, he jeked upright. "What can I ... do ... for you ... ladies?" he managed, stuffing his earnings into the drawer.

Flare leaned over, eying the long, lithe and silken scarves that were hanging from pegs or perched on the low tables. "Do you have anything a little longer?" she asked, pointing to her throat. "Jade, do you see anything you like?"

the jet shrugged. "Not really." she looked over the small lengths of fabric. "I guess I'm not a scarf person." she glanced at Flare. "Actually, I'd have more of a habit of throwing on end over my shoulder aviator-style." she joked. Then stooped to look at a silken blue and white scarf, with swirls of blue and white intertwined. Some of them were pretty. a bright floral print waved in the breeze, and the jet shrugged again.

"Understandable." The grey avian femme fingered a deep purple scarf; lifting it carefully in her taloned hands, she smoothed it over her chestplate, then gently tied it around her neck. "What do you think?"

Jade tilted her head to one side, then nodded.

"I like it too," she decided then. There was a soft cloud-patterned one, and a delicate rose as well that caught her eye. Digging into subspace, she pulled her credit card out and handed it to the gentleman. "I'll take these three." Hesitantly, the man reached out for the larger square of otherworldly plastic and punched the numbers he found on the back into his machine. Flare accepted her purchases, tied the purple scarf around her neck and stuffed the others into subspace.

"Where to?"

"Uh." Jade looked around. It seemed everyone else had dissapeared. Where had Windcharger gone? He'd probably found Carly and Bumblebee.

"I dunno." Jade shrugged.

They wandered over towards where Carly had headed, and Bumblebee looked at them through the storefront window like 'help me' while Carly looked over some cute baby outfits.  
Jade couldn't help but chuckle as they walked in.

"Awww, this one's so adorable!" she held up a blue outfit with white pinstripes and a blue collar with ruffles on it. "Oh hi guys!" Bumblebee said loudly enough to distract the femme.

Linking her hands behind her back as far as they would go, Flare peered at the little pieces of clothing. "Cute."

"I know, aren't they?" Carly practically squealed with delight. "and just look what I found!" she held up a pair of matching blue sneakers, glancing at Bumblebee who smiled and nodded politely, rolling his optics when she looked away.

Windcharger and Jazz sautered in, holding shopping bags. "More music?" Jade asked. the duo nodded. "We should probably be headin' back, though." the black and white said. Carly headed over to another rack of clothes. "Hang on, let me get one more outfit... Ooh, Spike'll love this one." she held up a blue and green checkered outfit.

"I'm sure he will." Bumblebee muttered, looking away.

Carly paid for the items, and the group filed out, waving to different humans that gawked at them as they left.

As she walked out of the shop, there was a low pulsing beep at her chestplate. Flare paused, touched the commlink activator. "Yo, girl," Blaster's voice echoed, "Sorry to interrupt your one-on-one time with th' chick-jet, but I need you back here."

He didn't sound all that concerned, so it probably wasn't an emergency. Apologetically, Flare glanced at the group. "Sorry, guys." She angled her head at Jade. "Another time, hmm? Femmes have to stick together with all this testosterone around, no?" With a wave, she angled her wings and transformed, roaring off into the clear blue sky.

Jade grinned. Jazz waved at her as she left. "See ya later!" he turned to the others. "So, anyone wanna hear the newest tunes?" he grinned. "Why do I get the feeling we're going to be hearing them on the way home anyway?" Jade noted.

Jazz canted a grin and transformed. "Carly?" he opened his passenger-side door for her to get in. Bumblebee silently sighed in relief as they pulled away. "I thought my audios were gonna fall off for a second there." he said, transforming.

"Don't worry, Bee, you'll get used to it. There's still five months to go before she has the baby." Windcharger laughed as they pulled away. Jade laughed and took off. Bumblebee muttered something, and the group hit the road.


	8. 77 Blind (Sight isn't everything)

Title: untitled

Challenge Set: 1

Prompt: 77, Blind

Rating: G

Word Count: 1295

Pairings: none

time frame: somewhere towards the end of 3rd war, when Jade is with the Autobots

summary: Jade gets a facefull of plasma grenade, and the Autobots discover something unique about the jet. Can't say more or I'll give it away.

"Jade lookout!" over the din of weaponfire, the jet baqrely heard the shout. Megatron was poulling his usual routine. Raid power facility, grab cubes, put up fight, run.

She looked down as the small metal oval bumped her foot. She didn't even have time to react before the plasma grenade exploded. There was a white flash, and everything went dark. She blinked. "Now waitaminute... why am I only seeing shadows?" she thought. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and thinking it was a Decepticon, extended a forearm spike and punched him...

She missed, but a string of Cybertronian curses followed, in the voice of Ratchet. Megatron took to the air yelling to his troups to retreat. "just what the hell did you think you were doing!?" the medic's voice sounded to her left. She turned her head slightly, making out the outline against the sunlight, almost like trying to see in a room without light. Or a dark alleyway. "Uh... I thought you were a Con?" Jade answered unsuredly. More curses, this time softer. "Next time someone says look out, move!" He grabbed her by the arm and led her back to the group. She was having a hard time walking over the rocks and other stuff littering the ground, but it wasn't as though she'd never had to go without being able to see well before.

Someone whistled off to the side. "You look like hell." She could've sworn that voice belonged to Sunstreaker.

"Plasma grenade." she replied flatly.

"Ouch."

And that would be Sideswipe. "I tried to yell at you to move. I guess you didn't hear me." he trailed off.

"No, It's okay. I heard you. I just didn't have the chance to." she turned to look at where the voice was coming from.

Sideswipe looked at her. "You can still see?" he asked. Jade realized she was looking straight at him. "No, but I can tell where a voice is coming from." she shrugged.

In the darkness and shadow, the movement of light changed, and she realized someone was in front of her. "We should get back to base." Prime said, and transformed. "Anyone care to give me a ride." the jet joked, and Ratchet transformed, opening his hatch so the jet could climb in.  
Sunstreaker and sideswipe showed up at the repairbay about an hour or so later. "Well, how's our favorite jet?" sideswipe joked.

"I'm fine." came the reply.

"Aside from her face being burned slightly, she's fine. The flash should have short circuited her optic relays, but didn't." Ratchet added.

Jade rolled over and looked at them. "your optics, they're..." Sideswipe started, but Jade cut him off.

"Blue. Yes, I know. They aren't really green. she grinned. "See, humans have these things called a contact lense, which is a thing peice of clear material placed against the eye to correct vision impediment. Kind of like the same thing as glasses, only better. When I became a Transformer, somehow, the lenses turned yellow-colored, making my optics look green.

both Lamborginis looked suprised.

Ratchet stepped in with. "and that's why the plasma blast didn't effect her Optic sensors. The lens-covers protected them somehow." Jade smiled again. "Other than my face hurting, I'm perfectly fine." she shrugged. "although I can't wear contact lenses for about a week or so, my optics are still slightly sensitive after the other ones were halfway-melted. ow." she rubbed a hand over her optics. "So I'm stuck being very very nearsighted." She looked up at the very fuzzied white and red form. "Can I go now? I should probably get some recharge." she muttered. Ratchet nodded, but she didn't see.

"Oh...yes." he finally said. She slipped of the repair berth and found her feet. She looked around. It was kind of like a managerie of colors, mostly blotches of the various colors, blurring into one another, and she could only make out lighter and darker areas instead of faces and such, but she tried to make it seem like she could see.

Sideswipe grabbed her arm, hooking it around his. "Come on, We'll lead you where you need to go." he grinned.

"Uh... why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?" Jade asked, half-jokingly. "What, can't I help out a friend in her time of need?" he replied. They walked out...

Meanwhile, Blaster had some music on in the rec. room, when the trio walked in, and Bluestreak and Jazz looked up when they came in. "Hey, you're allright?" Bluestreak chirped. Jade nodded, aiming her stare at where his head would be. She couldn't really tell for sure.

She took a seat next to them, and the Lamborginis took a seat across from her. And Bluestreak started to ask questions.

"So, what happened then? can you still see? are you allright? How many fingers am I holding up."

Jade eyed the three fingers waving close enough to smack her in the face. "Three fingers, yes I'm fine. Yes I can see, kinda, and It turned out that because I have something called contact lenses that my optics were protected from the blast because they have a gamma wave filter I don't know how that happenned." she looked at him. "Any other questions?"

"Jus' one." Jazz sounded from across the table. "How come your optics are blue?"

"The contact lenses. I don't know why. But my eyes really are blue. When I came to your world, the lenses somehow turned yellow, probably the gamma wave filter to see against sunlight while flying, and made them look green." she shrugged.

"So you can see?"

"Yes and no." she explained everything about being able to see blurred shapes and light and dark, and colors, but that it was still extremely blurry, and went to get some energon from the dispenser. "I can see clearly up to about two feet... our sized feet, that is, away." she sat back down. "But I can't tell you who's sitting across the room, unless I can recognise them by color. Like Sunstreaker, or..." she thought for a second. "I dunno. I guess I'd just know sunny because he's the only one with a yellow color scheme." she shrugged.

The rest of the day went pretty quickly, and Jade headed to her quarters. "I hate not being able to see like this." she muttered.

The rest of the week passed by, and she finally was able to get her lenses in. She blinked and looked around. "That's much better." she blinked a couple times and sat down on the couch.

The base alarm sounded.

"Aaargh!" the jet yelled sarcastically, and got up to run to the control room.

"Well, at least I'll be able to see someone throwing something at me now. Grenade or weaponfire." she chuckled, and transformed, flying off to join the battle.

fin.

-------------

I don't know why, but this seemed like and interesting prompt, so seeing it on the 28 ficlets prompt list, I transferred it to my fanchar 100. Also, I do wear contact lenses, and my eyesight is exactly the way I described it for Jade. I can't see clearly past 2 feet, and everything is blurred shapes/colors/shadow, without my contact lenses, of course. I wanted to see what it would be like for my fancharacter to go through the same thing. Not being able to fly because of not being able to see, or know who she's talking to. 


	9. 23 White (the Deer Creek Trip)

Title: the Deer Creek Trip (first person p.o.v.)

Challenge Set: 1

Prompt: 23 White (as in white-water river rapids)

Rating: G

Word Count: 845

Pairings: none

time frame: towards the end of the 3rd war series, after Jade joins the autobots, and after the rest of her group goes home.

summary: While in the area, Prowl gets a call about some teenagers jumping off a bridge into a rocky part of the Deer Creek rapids (Deer creek is a river, not a creek. Eh, go figure) Jade, who is with him, knows that bridge, and beats him to it... She is one of the people who have jumped off it in the past!

July 15th, 1994 Deer Creek River, Pennsylvania

It was an old metal bridge, the kind that they don't make anymore, with the v shaped beams at the sides, and crossbars overhead, kind of an arch-shaped bridge, more or less. It was about ten feet from the old pavement of the bridge to the river below.

But what if the local law enforcement found us? Oh, I knew about that. The bridge had been since blocked off to traffic, on this old unused backroad, and the bridge itself was off-limits. Every year, some inexperienced kid had jumped off it during the rainy (flood) season, and hit the rocks below.

I glance at the steel beams above my head, and glance at the guy on my left. a short-haired muscular hispanic dude with a moustache and a thick accent. I can hear the sirens. Someone knows we're here. The light-brunette haired girl on my right yells "Jump!" The guy on my left runs and jumps the metal barrier at the edge, dissapearing into the river rapids below before I can stop him.

The girl glances at the black and white State Highway Patrol car as it pulls up, sirens blaring, and runs and jumps also. I look up at Prowl as he transforms, then look back down, across the churning, white-foamed waves of the river below.

I grin.

"See you at the Resevoir!" I wave, and run and jump the barrier. I only hope I miss that giant rock...

A minute later I resurface, and look up at the Autobot, grinning widely at our persuer, who was sent out here because of a report of a bunch of teenagers who were jumping off the bridge. I tagged along, but knew where the bridge was, and beat him to it. True, jumping off this bridge during the rainy season, one might not see the rocks just under the water, but those who jumped off here constantly knew where it was. Besides, if someone did get hurt, there were Autobots here to help us out, right?

Although I'll probably have hell to pay for this later, I'll still remember the look on Prowl's faceplate when "the jet who's afraid of water" jumped. heh. Well, I am afraid of water, if it goes over my head. But these mild rapids are so shallow I could probably walk downstream if I wanted to. Anyway, I just rest my hands behind my head and float on downriver towards the naturally created lake cut out of the limestone hills. The rather canyon-like lake is surrounded on almost all sides by sheer rock walls and trees, making it virtually secret.

The Deer Creek resovoir. Shallow enough to wade on one side, and deep enough to swim on the other, before shallowing out by the walls.

I reach the tri-tier falls that cascades into the resovoir, and find my feet. It's a stairstep falls, with three levels, the lowest just below the water. But I'm not going to jump off that one. That would be no fun, now wouldn't it?

"Hey guys!" I yell. The humans look up at the giant muave and blue jet, and I grin. They gasp. Oh, they know they're in for it now. heh. I back up about ten feet and run, launching myself off the top tier. "Look out below!" I do a canonball, and drop into the 20 foot deep section, sending waves across the 100 or so foot long mini-lake. A minute later, I break the surface, coughing and giggling at the same time.

A sandy-haired guy of 26 or so paddles over. "Hiya foofoo!" I grin, using his nickname.

"Hi." He smiles back and pretends to tackle/dunk me, even though I'm about four times his size. I go under, blowing bubbles like I'm drowning, and come back up, seeing a flash of light on the shoreline as I do. I turn and look. "Uh... I hate to spoil your fun, but..." I look over at Prowl, then yell "COPS!" the other swimmers scatter, finding the various paths up the wall, and most of them taking the path from the lake up to the top of the falls, and out of the river from there.

"So, Prowl... what brings you all the way out here?" I ask innocently, walking over, and up out of the old swimming hole lake thingie... 


	10. 48 Silence (untitled)

Prompt #: 48 Silence Title: none Time Frame: sometime during the RP2 series characters: Jazz, Jade, Shadow, Terra, Gunlock, Cable, Cap, Beacon, Ty Rating: G

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It had started out as a discussion, that turned into a challenge, that evolved into a dare. Jade considered this as she lurked in a darkened corner of the Ark's corridors. She was hiding in a slight indntation in the wall, just waiting for her quarry to come past.

Shadow, Gunlock, Cable, Cap, Beacon, Ty, Jazz, and herself had decided on a game of "Hide and go Seek in the Dark". a type of game human children played. Basically, players could either run or hide, or both, and the "it" person had a dodgeball or some other kind of soft ball. Whoever was hit, though, would become "it" too, until only one person was left un-itted.

Two levels of the Ark had been marked out as "game territory", and all the lights had been turned off, plunging the halls into nearly-pitch-black darkness. The backup lights, which had been placed along the floor and ceiling every 200 yards or so gave the halls a dim shadowy light. light enough to see, but dark enough to hide.

Instead of playing like the humans, with a dodgeballs, the players were armed with stun guns. This was a game of elimination, and once hit, a player was out of the game.

Jade smirked to herself. The bolts would sting slightly, but they would only temporarily scramble movement impulses. "Kind of like a tazer", she thought. But her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming down the ajacent corridor.

Apparently, Cable, Cap, and Terra had decided to form an alliance and work together. The group turned the corner and hurried down the hallway towards her. Jade dimmed her optics a little more, thankful she had asked the trio to help her spray-paint her armor black, and replace her wings with much smaller identical ones.

The game was supposed to be everyone against everyone else, but Jade guessed the trio would only stay together until they were the last ones standing. "that's not gonna happen." Jade grinned, waiting for the group.

Suddenly, Gunlock popped out from around a corner and fired. The trio let out a chorus of suprised yells and scattered, diving in three different directions. Cable sunk to the floor. Terra's dark coloration allowed her to simply melt into the darkness.

Jade guessed she was somewhere close to the ceiling, above where an opponent would assume she was. the sound of her wings had stopped, so Jade guessed the bat-former was either hanging from or perching on one of the crossbars traversing the hallway.

Cap ducked, fired, and missed. A shot came from the ceiling, stunning Gunlock before he could hit his target. Terra chuckled and landed. "aren't you glad you have me around?" she told Cap gleefully as she landed. Cap just grinned and wrapped his arms around the taller femme's neck. "My hero." he grinned, giving her a quick kiss.

about that time, Jade peeked around the corner. She was half tempted to yell "get a room!", but instead settled for waiting for the two to finish kissing, then popped off a pair of shots that dropped the duo. She walked up. "Sorry guys, but you're gonna have to wait till later to P.D.A." she grinned, and tiptoed down the hall.

The seekerfemme continued, stopping to glance to her right. She grinned. There was a ladder on the wall leading up to the ventilation grate on the ceiling above it. Probably one of the access points to the ductwork for cleaning and cassetticon-chasing.

Shadow padded down the Ark's corridors nearly soundlessly. she was on the hunt. the dragoness had allready passed Cable, and Cap, terra, and Gunlock also. There were only a few left. She turned a corner and sniffed the air. Someone was close. She grinned to herself.

Meanwhile, on the top rung of the ladder down the hall, a certain human grinned to herself, Jade smirked knowing nobody had counted on her ability to go from autobot to human. She watched as Shadow padded down the hall, the femmes steps nearly soundless.

"The point *is* to be quiet, but I wonder how she does that, being metal and all." Jade thought. She knew her black clothing concealed her well enough shadow couldn't see her. Well, she *hoped* shadow wouldn't see her. She stayed very still, letting the dragoness pass.

It wasn't very long before a suprised roar echoed down the corridor, followed by a very Jazz-like laugh. "Yer gettin' way too casual 'bout it shades." Jazz grinned and walked down the hall where Jade was hiding. She aimed, but he was too far away. And with one of the emergency lights as close as it was, she couldn't shoot him without him seeing her (possibly) first. The human decided to just let him go by.

Jazz got halfway down the hall, right next to her. She froze, and even tried to breathe more quietly. the black and white looked around, and Jade though she had been spotted. But he started to walk away. Jade took aim at the back of his head, grinned, and snapped of a shot.

The shot hit it's mark, and Jade laughed out loud as she jumped to the flooring, transforming as she did so. She sauntered over and rolled the stunned saboteur over onto his back. "Turning human wasn't againt the rules." she grinned, squatting down to look him in the visor. "I told you I love this game." she stood, knowing he couldn't reply.

"and" she thought silently "that's what you get for challenging me to 'a friendly game' of hide and go seek in the dark." then aloud "the key is to be completely silent." she hit her comm, calling the rec. room where those following the game would be witing on word from the command deck where the game was being followed with cameras and the ship's sensors.

She grinned again. "this is Jade, Jazz is down. Game Over. Anyone wanna go for round two?" there was a pause, then someone in the background confirmed it. There was a chorus of groans as those who had placed bets lost them.

Bumblebee's voice chimed in. "I'll play a round with you guys. anyone else want to join in?" Cable joined in on the comm. "I'm up for another round." a pause, then "somebody needs to get a little payback." a chorus of "Ooooooooooh"s sounded from the "peanut gallery" (the rec room).

Jade just grinned. "yup, gonna be a fun night." she thought, heading towards the rec room, where all the players would meet after the game, and start a new one.

~the end


End file.
